Calorimeter development for the SuperNEMO double beta decay experiment

A.S. Barabash , A. Basharina-Freshville , S. Blot , M. Bongrand (1) , Ch. Bourgeois (1) , D. Breton (1) , V. Brudanin , H. Burešovà , J. Busto (2) , A.J. Caffrey , S. Calvez (1) , M. Cascella , C. Cerna (3) , J.P. Cesar , E. Chauveau (3) , A. Chopra , G. Claverie (3) , S. de Capua , F. Delalee (3) , D. Duchesneau (4) , V. Egorov , G. Eurin (1) , J.J. Evans , L. Fajt , D. Filosofov , R. Flack , X. Garrido (1) , H. Gómez (1) , B. Guillon (5) , P. Guzowski , R. Hodák , K. Holý , A. Huber (3) , C. Hugon (3) , A. Jeremie (4) , S. Jullian (1) , M. Kauer , A. Klimenko , O. Kochetov , S.I. Konovalov , V. Kovalenko , K. Lang , Y. Lemière (5) , T. Le Noblet (4) , Z. Liptak , X.R. Liu , P. Loaiza (1) , G. Lutter (3) , J. Maalmi (1) , M. Macko (3) , F. Mamedov , C. Marquet (3) , F. Mauger (5) , I. Moreau (3) , B. Morgan , J. Mott , I. Nemchenok , M. Nomachi , F. Nova , H. Ohsumi , R.B. Pahlka , J.R. Pater , F. Perrot (3) , F. Piquemal (3, 6) , P. Povinec , P. Přidal , Y.A. Ramachers , A. Rebii (3) , A. Remoto (4) , B. Richards , J.S. Ricol (3) , C.L. Riddle , E. Rukhadze , R. Saakyan , R. Salazar , X. Sarazin (1) , J. Sedgbeer , Yu. Shitov , F. Šimkovic , L. Simard (1, 7) , A. Smetana , K. Smolek , A. Smolnikov , S. Snow , S. Söldner-Rembold , B. Soulé (3) , M. Špavorová , I. Štekl , J. Thomas , V. Timkin , S. Torre , Vl.I. Tretyak , V.I. Tretyak , V.I. Umatov , C. Vilela , V. Vorobel , D. Waters , A. Žukauskas

1 LAL - Laboratoire de l'Accélérateur Linéaire
2 CPPM - Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseille
3 CENBG - Centre d'Etudes Nucléaires de Bordeaux Gradignan
4 LAPP - Laboratoire d'Annecy de Physique des Particules
5 LPCC - Laboratoire de physique corpusculaire de Caen
6 LSM - UMR 6417 - Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane
7 IUF - Institut universitaire de France

SuperNEMO is a double- β decay experiment, which will employ the successful tracker–calorimeter technique used in the recently completed NEMO-3 experiment. SuperNEMO will implement 100 kg of double- β decay isotope, reaching a sensitivity to the neutrinoless double- β decay ( 0νββ ) half-life of the order of 1026 yr, corresponding to a Majorana neutrino mass of 50–100 meV. One of the main goals and challenges of the SuperNEMO detector development programme has been to reach a calorimeter energy resolution, ΔE∕E , around 3%∕E(MeV) σ , or 7%∕E(MeV) FWHM (full width at half maximum), using a calorimeter composed of large volume plastic scintillator blocks coupled to photomultiplier tubes. We describe the R&D; programme and the final design of the SuperNEMO calorimeter that has met this challenging goal.

Mots clés: Calorimeter; Scintillators; Photomultipliers; Double beta decay; SuperNEMO; activity report; calorimeter: design; energy resolution; neutrino: Majorana: mass; Neutrino Ettore Majorana Observatory; scintillation counter: plastics; photomultiplier; sensitivity

Domaines: Instrumentations et Détecteurs [physics.ins-det]

A.S. Barabash, A. Basharina-Freshville, S. Blot, M. Bongrand, Ch. Bourgeois, et al.. Calorimeter development for the SuperNEMO double beta decay experiment. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 2017, 868, pp.98-108. ⟨10.1016/j.nima.2017.06.044⟩. ⟨hal-01582802⟩