Speaker
John Waiton
(University of Manchester)
Description
The NEXT collaboration is focused on the development of high-pressure gaseous xenon time projection chambers to investigate the Majorana nature of the neutrino via the search for neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ). The previous NEXT-WHITE detector demonstrated the technology's excellent capabilities with respect to energy resolution (sub-1%), topological discrimination, and a good understanding of background; allowing for novel methods to search for the challenging 0νββ signal.
The latest detector within the NEXT programme is NEXT-100; operating at the Laboratorio Subterráneo de Canfranc. NEXT-100 is designed to run with ∼100kg of enriched Xe-136 at 15 bar for 3 years to achieve a competitive 0νββ decay half-life sensitivity . The detector has completed commissioning, calibration and low background runs at ~4 bar with further data taking planned to begin shortly at ~10 bar. Initial results have shown very promising prospects for the scalability of NEXT technology for future tonne-scale detectors.
In this talk I will discuss the recent results from the NEXT-100 detector, its current status, and ongoing research.
Author
John Waiton
(University of Manchester)