28 June 2026 to 10 July 2026
US/Pacific timezone

Characterizing IC Detectors’ Low-Energy Performance in the Majorana Demonstrator

Not scheduled
20m

Speaker

Jason Chapman (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Description

The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR (MJD) is a low-background experiment that searched for neutrinoless double-beta decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$) in high-purity germanium (HPGe) detectors enriched to $>$90% in $^{76}$Ge. In addition to the search for $0\nu\beta\beta$, MJD's low-background configuration makes it sensitive to several other beyond standard model (BSM) phenomena, including quantum mechanical wavefunction collapse, baryon decay, and bosonic dark matter. While MJD primarily utilized P-type Point Contact (PPC) detectors, a novel detector geometry was developed to increase the active mass while maintaining low noise levels in future experiments. Four Inverted Coaxial (IC) detectors, each with two to five times greater mass compared to previous geometries, were deployed in MJD for about six months of data collection. This represents the lowest-energy-threshold, in-vacuum dataset available for the new detector geometry. MJD has now concluded data taking and the successor experiment, LEGEND-200, is searching for $0\nu\beta\beta$, primarily with IC detectors. To extend the low-energy BSM capabilities of MJD to LEGEND-200 and eventually LEGEND-1000, it is necessary to characterize and understand the behavior of IC detectors at low energies ($<$100 keV). This poster will describe the results of this study as well as future prospects and expected challenges.

Author

Jason Chapman (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

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