Recent advances in neutrinoless double beta decay search

Even after the discovery of neutrino flavour oscillations, based on data from atmospheric, solar, reactor, and accelerator experiments, many characteristics of the neutrino remain unknown. Only the neutrino square-mass differences and the mixing angle values have been estimated, while the value of each mass eigenstate still hasn't. Its nature (massive Majorana or Dirac particle) is still escaping. Neutrinoless double beta decay ($0\nu$-DBD) experimental discovery could be the ultimate answer to some delicate questions of elementary particle and nuclear physics. The Majorana description of neutrinos allows the $0\nu$-DBD process, and consequently either a mass value could be measured or the existence of physics beyond the standard should be confirmed without any doubt. As expected, the $0\nu$-DBD measurement is a very difficult field of application for experimentalists. In this paper, after a short summary of the latest results in neutrino physics, the experimental status, the R&D projects, and perspectives in $0\nu$-DBD sector are reviewed.Comment: 36 pages, 7 figures, To be publish in Czech Journal of Physic

Performance of room temperature mercuric iodide (HgI/sub 2/) detectors in the ultra low energy x-ray region

Performance of room temperature mercuric iodide x-ray spectrometers has been recently improved through new fabrication techniques and further development of low noise associated electronic systems. This progress has extended the range of measurements to the ultra low energy x-ray region at room temperature. This paper reports the study of the effect of contact material on the performance of HgI/sub 2/ detectors in the low energy x-ray region