Sensitivity of NEXT-100 to neutrinoless double beta decay

• DOI: 10.1007/jhep05(2016)159
• Publication Date: 2016-05-28T03:10:42Z
• Authors: J. Martín-Albo; J. Muñoz Vidal; P. Ferrario; M. Nebot-Guinot; J. J. Gómez-Cadenas; V. Álvarez; C. D. R. Azevedo; F. I. G. Borges; S. Cárcel; J. V. Carrión; S. Cebrián; A. Cervera; C. A. N. Conde; J. Díaz; M. Diesburg; R. Esteve; L. M. P. Fernandes; A. L. Ferreira; E. D. C. Freitas; A. Goldschmidt; D. González-Díaz; R. M. Gutiérrez; J. Hauptman; C. A. O. Henriques; J. A. Hernando Mo...; V. Herrero; L. Labarga; A. Laing; P. Lebrun; I. Liubarsky; N. López-March; D. Lorca; M. Losada; G. Martínez-Lema; A. Martínez; F. Monrabal; C. M. B. Monteiro; F. J. Mora; L. M. Moutinho; P. Novella; D. Nygren; B. Palmeiro; A. Para; M. Querol; J. Renner; L. Ripoll; J. Rodríguez; F. P. Santos; J. M. F. dos Santos; L. Serra; D. Shuman; A. Simón; C. Sofka; M. Sorel; T. Stiegler; J. F. Toledo; J. Torrent; Z. Tsamalaidze; J. F. C. A. Veloso; R. Webb; J. T. White; N. Yahlali; H. Yepes-Ramírez
• Keywords: Time projection chamber

NEXT-100 is an electroluminescent high-pressure xenon gas time projection chamber that will search for the neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay of 136Xe. The detector possesses two features great value 0νββ searches: energy resolution better than 1% FWHM at Q 136Xe and track reconstruction discrimination signal background events. This combination results in excellent sensitivity, as discussed this paper. Material-screening measurements a detailed Monte Carlo simulation predict rate most 4 × 10−4 counts keV−1 kg−1 yr−1. Accordingly, reach sensitivity to 0νββ-decay half-life 2.8 1025 years (90% CL) exposure 100 kg·year, or 6.0 after run 3 effective years.