LIDINE 2017: LIght Detection In Noble Elements

Progress towards barium daughter tagging in Xe136 decay using single molecule fluorescence imaging

24 Sept 2017, 11:40

15m

Kavli Auditorium (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

Presentation Detector techniques (HV, cryogenics, purification, calibration, etc.) Sunday Morning 2

Speaker

Austin McDonald (UTA)

Description

The existence of Majorana fermions is of great interest as it may be related to the asymmetry between matter and anti-matter particles in the universe. However, the search for them has proven to be a difficult one. Neutrino-less Double Beta decay (NLDB) offers a possible opportunity for direct observation of a Majorana Fermion. The rate for NLDB decay may be as low as $\approx 1$ $count/ton/year$ if the mass ordering is inverted. Current detector technologies have background rates between $4$ to $300$ $count/ton/year/ROI$ at the 100kg scale which is much larger than the universal goal of $0.1$ $count/ton/year/ROI$ desired for ton-scale detectors. The premise of my research is to develop new detector technologies that will allow for a background-free experiment. My current work is to develop a sensor that will tag the daughter ion $B{a}^{++}$ from the $X{e}^{136}$ decay. The development of a sensor that is sensitive to single barium ion detection based on the single molecule fluorescence imaging technique is the major focus of this work. If successful, this could provide a path to a background-free experiment.

Presentation materials

Slides

Austin-LIDINE.pptx