Sensitivity of a tonne-scale NEXT detector for neutrinoless double-beta decay searches
C. Adams (Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois, U.S.A.); V. Álvarez (Instituto de Instrumentación para Imagen Molecular (I3M), CSIC & Univ. Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain); L. Arazi (Unit of Nuclear Engineering, Faculty of Engineering Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel); I. Arnquist (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington, U.S.A.); C. Azevedo (Institute of Nanostructures, Nanomodelling and Nanofabrication (i3N), Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal); et al - Show all 98 authors
The Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon TPC (NEXT) searches for the neutrinoless double-beta (0νββ) decay of 136Xe using high-pressure xenon gas TPCs with electroluminescent amplification. A scaled-up version of this technology with about 1 tonne of enriched xenon could reach in less than 5 years of operation a sensitivity to the half-life of 0νββ decay better than 1027 years, improving the current limits by at least one order of magnitude. This prediction is based on a well-understood background model dominated by radiogenic sources. The detector concept presented here represents a first step on a compelling path towards sensitivity to the parameter space defined by the inverted ordering of neutrino masses, and beyond.
