June 22, 2020 to July 2, 2020
US/Central timezone

Barium Tagging for Background Free Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay Searches

Not scheduled
10m

Speaker

Katherine Woodruff (University of Texas at Arlington)

Description

New ultra-sensitive technologies are likely to be required for an observation of neutrinoless double beta with lifetimes in excess of the limits set by existing experiments. A promising avenue to a zero-background experiment is the identification of the daughter ion produced in the decay. The NEXT collaboration is developing techniques to collect and image single barium ions that result from the double beta decay of xenon-136 in high-pressure gas time projection chambers. The approach described in this poster uses dry-functional, on-off fluorophores imaged with single molecule fluorescence microscopy coupled to high-pressure RF carpets. I will present the latest status of these techniques, including new data on custom-made, single ion sensitive fluorescent molecules; new in-situ microscopy techniques, and progress on high-pressure RF carpet R&D.

Mini-abstract

Barium tagging could eliminate radioactive background to neutrinoless double beta decay of xenon-136

Experiment/Collaboration NEXT

Primary author

Katherine Woodruff (University of Texas at Arlington)

Presentation materials