Roxanne Guenette: Searching for Majorana neutrinos with NEXT

Friday 5 Nov 2021, 12:30 → 14:00 Europe/London

https://zoom.us/j/97041428849

Abstract: Neutrinos are the only particles of the Standard Model that could be of Majorana nature, a characteristic that would give considerable strength to theories that propose to explain the mass of these elusive particles and that intend to explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry. After reviewing  this intriguing property of neutrinos, I will explain how searching for neutrinoless double beta decays with the NEXT experiment could give us a unique opportunity to discover a Majorana neutrino. The detector technology, a Xenon High Pressure Time Projection Chamber, offers several key advantages, including excellent energy resolution and powerful event classification based on track topology. After reviewing the fundamentals of the experiment, I will highlight recent results from the NEXT-White prototype, which has been acquiring data at the Laboratorio Subterráneo de Canfranc (LSC), in Spain, for the last 6 years, showing excellent performance. I will discuss as well the status and prospects of the upcoming NEXT-100, expected to start its operation in 2022, as well as the prospects for a ton-scale experiment.

The seminar will be in person in Niels Bohr, Schuster. For those connecting remotely please use:

https://zoom.us/j/97041428849

Meeting ID: 970 4142 8849

Passcode: 6275

Seminar_Manchester_Guenette.pdf