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American Institute of Physics, AIP Conference Proceedings, 2012

DOI: 10.1063/1.3700592

American Institute of Physics, AIP Conference Proceedings, 2013

DOI: 10.1063/1.4856546

IOP Publishing, Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 4(375), p. 042010, 2012

DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/375/1/042010

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The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR: A Search for Neutrinoless Double-beta Decay of Germanium-76

Journal article published in 2011 by Collaboration Majorana, C. Zhan, A. G. Schuberta, J. F. Wilkerson, C. Zhang, B. Shanks, R. G. H. Robertson, M. C. Ronquest, A. G. Schubert, N. Snyder, T. Shima, M. Shirchenko, A. Soin, K. J. Snavely, A. M. Suriano and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

The {\sc Majorana} collaboration is searching for neutrinoless double beta decay using $^{76}$Ge, which has been shown to have a number of advantages in terms of sensitivities and backgrounds. The observation of neutrinoless double-beta decay would show that lepton number is violated and that neutrinos are Majorana particles and would simultaneously provide information on neutrino mass. Attaining sensitivities for neutrino masses in the inverted hierarchy region, $15 - 50$ meV, will require large, tonne-scale detectors with extremely low backgrounds, at the level of $∼$1 count/t-y or lower in the region of the signal. The {\sc Majorana} collaboration, with funding support from DOE Office of Nuclear Physics and NSF Particle Astrophysics, is constructing the {\sc Demonstrator}, an array consisting of 40 kg of p-type point-contact high-purity germanium (HPGe) detectors, of which $∼$30 kg will be enriched to 87% in $^{76}$Ge. The {\sc Demonstrator} is being constructed in a clean room laboratory facility at the 4850' level (4300 m.w.e.) of the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in Lead, SD. It utilizes a compact graded shield approach with the inner portion consisting of ultra-clean Cu that is being electroformed and machined underground. The primary aim of the {\sc Demonstrator} is to show the feasibility of a future tonne-scale measurement in terms of backgrounds and scalability. ; Comment: Proceedings for the MEDEX 2013 Conference