Speaker
Mr
Federico Nova
(University of Texas at Austin)
Description
Following the unique strategy pionereed by NEMO-3, the SuperNEMO experiment can identify
the neutrinoless double beta ($\beta\beta$) decay of enriched isotopes by combining the measurement
of the energy of each emitted electron in the calorimeter and the characteristic topology
detected for their trajectories in the magnetized wire chamber: two tracks of negative charge ejected
at the same time by a common vertex on the source.
The full kinematical reconstruction of the event allows to reject radioactive backgrounds and constrain
the theoretical model behind a neutrinoless $\beta\beta$-decay. A suite of techniques has been developed
to convert the collection of hits detected by the drift cells operated in Geiger mode into sets of tracks
belonging to charged particles ($e^-, e^+, \alpha^{++}$). First, the wire hits are clustered based on
requirements of continuity and boundary conditions to match the hits on the surrounding calorimeter;
each cluster is then explored for pattern recognition, leading to identification of broken-lines (with
cellular automaton technique), straight lines and helices (with the method of Legendre transform);
finally a coherent scenario of tracks is assembled from these structures. The reconstruction of an event topology
allows to give tracks an id, find their generation and disappearence point, associate them with energy
(as measured by the calorimeter) and calculate their time-of-flight.
Primary author
Mr
Federico Nova
(University of Texas at Austin)