Séminaire spécialisé

mercredi 21 mai 2014 à 12:20

Amphi G. Besse

NEXT, an electroluminescent high pressure xenon gas TPC for neutrino-less double-beta decay search

Nadia Yahlali

Instituto de Física Corpuscular (IFIC), CSIC & Universitat de València, Spain

The NEXT international collaboration, majoritarily based and funded in Spain, and since recently funded by the Europeen Community, aims at the construction of a high pressure xenon gas TPC for the search of the neutrinoless double-beta decay (bb0n) of the Xe-136 isotope. This rare phenomenon, not observed yet to the date, will shed light on the nature of the neutrino. If observed, this phenomenon will reveal the neutrino as a Majorana particle, i.e. a particle identicle to its anti-particle, a breakthrough in our understanding of Nature.
The experiments that aimed at the discovery of the bb0n have to show a robust evidence of the observed events. Very stringent requirements are necessary to make this evidence possible.
In this talk, I will give an overview of the bb search field and will describe the technology developed in the so-called NEXT-100 experiment which will use an electroluminescent TPC filled with 100 kg of high pressure enriched xenon. I will show the first results from the demonstrator prototype so-called NEXT-DEMO, presently in operation at IFIC, and the future plans for the installation of the final detector in the Canfranc Underground Laboratory (LSC) in the spanish pyrenees.

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