Bonn 2010 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 113: Experimentelle Techniken der Astroteilchenphysik III

T 113.8: Vortrag

Donnerstag, 18. März 2010, 18:35–18:50, HG ÜR 1

Start-up of low-background test stand LArGe for GERDA at LNGS — •Mark Heisel¹, Albert Gangapshev², Alexander Klimenko³, Stefan Schönert¹, Anatoly Smolnikov³, and Grzegorz Zuzel¹ — ¹Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg, Germany — ²Baksan Neutrino Observatory, INR RAS, Russia — ³Joint Institut for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia

LArGe is a test facility for Phase II of the GERDA experiment. The goal of GERDA is the search for neutrinoless double beta decay of Ge-76 with a considerable reduction of background in comparison with predecessor experiments. GERDA will operate bare germanium semiconductor detectors (enriched in Ge-76) submerged in high purity liquid argon supplemented by a water shield.

LArGe puts into practice the novel concept to use LAr scintillation light as anti-coincidence signal for further background suppression. In the pilot setup Mini-LArGe about 95% of the background Compton events in the Ge detector were vetoed using 19 kg of LAr as active volume. Pulse shape analysis methods were developed, which allow to perform gamma/alpha/neutron selection with a strong discrimination factor (>10⁵) for diagnostics.

LArGe intends to realize these powerful tools on a larger scale using 1.4 tons of LAr as active volume in a copper cryostat surrounded by a graded low-level shielding. This talk gives an account of the start-up phase of this setup, which is currently ongoing in the Gran Sasso underground laboratory (Italy).