The Majorana Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay Experiment

Neutrinoless double-beta decay searches play a major role in determining the nature of neutrinos, the existence of a lepton violating process, and the effective Majorana neutrino mass. The Majorana Collaboration proposes to assemble an array of HPGe detectors to search for neutrinoless double-beta decay in Ge-76. Our proposed method uses the well-established technique of searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay in high purity Ge-diode radiation detectors that play both roles of source and detector. The technique is augmented with recent improvements in signal processing and detector design, and advances in controlling intrinsic and external backgrounds. Initially, Majorana aims to construct a prototype module containing 60 kg of Ge detectors to demonstrate the potential of a future 1-tonne experiment. The design and potential reach of this prototype Demonstrator module will be presented. This paper will also discuss detector optimization and low-background requirements, such as material purity, background rejection, and identification of rare backgrounds required to reach the sensitivity goals of the Majorana experiment.Comment: paper submitted to the 2008 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Recor

A Review and Outlook for the Removal of Radon-Generated Po-210 Surface Contamination

The next generation low-background detectors operating deep underground aim for unprecedented low levels of radioactive backgrounds. The deposition and presence of radon progeny on detector surfaces is an added source of energetic background events. In addition to limiting the detector material's radon exposure in order to reduce potential surface backgrounds, it is just as important to clean surfaces to remove inevitable contamination. Such studies of radon progeny removal have generally found that a form of etching is effective at removing some of the progeny (Bi and Pb), however more aggressive techniques, including electropolishing, have been shown to effectively remove the Po atoms. In the absence of an aggressive etch, a significant fraction of the Po atoms are believed to either remain behind within the surface or redeposit from the etching solution back onto the surface. We explore the chemical nature of the aqueous Po ions and the effect of the oxidation state of Po to maximize the Po ions remaining in the etching solution of contaminated Cu surfaces. We present a review of the previous studies of surface radon progeny removal and our findings on the role of oxidizing agents and a cell potential in the preparation of a clean etching technique.Comment: Proceedings of the Low Radioactivity Techniques (LRT) 2017, Seoul, South Korea, May 24-26, 201

A Radon Progeny Deposition Model

The next generation low-background detectors operating underground aim for unprecedented low levels of radioactive backgrounds. Although the radioactive decays of airborne radon (particularly Rn-222) and its subsequent progeny present in an experiment are potential backgrounds, also problematic is the deposition of radon progeny on detector materials. Exposure to radon at any stage of assembly of an experiment can result in surface contamination by progeny supported by the long half life (22 y) of Pb-210 on sensitive locations of a detector. An understanding of the potential surface contamination from deposition will enable requirements of radon-reduced air and clean room environments for the assembly of low background experiments. It is known that there are a number of environmental factors that govern the deposition of progeny onto surfaces. However, existing models have not explored the impact of some environmental factors important for low background experiments. A test stand has been constructed to deposit radon progeny on various surfaces under a controlled environment in order to develop a deposition model. Results from this test stand and the resulting deposition model are presented.Comment: Proceedings of the Topical Workshop in Low Radioactivity Techniques, (Sudbury, Canada) August 28-29, 201

Fast-Neutron Activation of Long-Lived Isotopes in Enriched Ge

We measured the production of \nuc{57}{Co}, \nuc{54}{Mn}, \nuc{68}{Ge}, \nuc{65}{Zn}, and \nuc{60}{Co} in a sample of Ge enriched in isotope 76 due to high-energy neutron interactions. These isotopes, especially \nuc{68}{Ge}, are critical in understanding background in Ge detectors used for double-beta decay experiments. They are produced by cosmogenic-neutron interactions in the detectors while they reside on the Earth's surface. These production rates were measured at neutron energies of a few hundred MeV. We compared the measured production to that predicted by cross-section calculations based on CEM03.02. The cross section calculations over-predict our measurements by approximately a factor of three depending on isotope. We then use the measured cosmic-ray neutron flux, our measurements, and the CEM03.02 cross sections to predict the cosmogenic production rate of these isotopes. The uncertainty in extrapolating the cross section model to higher energies dominates the total uncertainty in the cosmogenic production rate.Comment: Revised after feedback and further work on extrapolating cross sections to higher energies in order to estimate cosmic production rates. Also a numerical error was found and fixed in the estimate of the Co-57 production rat

Neutrino masses along with fermion mass hierarchy

Recently a new mechanism has been proposed to cure the problem of fermion mass hierarchy in the Standard Model (SM) model. In this scenario, all SM charged fermions other than top quark arise from higher dimensional operators involving the SM Higgs field. This model also predicted some interesting phenomenology of the Higgs boson. We generalize this model to accommodate neutrino masses (Dirac & Majorana) and also obtain the mixing pattern in the leptonic sector. To generate neutrino masses, we add extra three right handed neutrinos $(N_{iR})$ in this model.Comment: 20 pages, the content on results and phenomenology have been expanded, a new section on UV completion of the model has been added and also some new references, this version has been accepted by Physical Review