Dresden 2013 – scientific programme
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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne
HK 43: Astroteilchenphysik
HK 43.2: Group Report
Tuesday, March 5, 2013, 17:15–17:45, HSZ-401
GERDA status report — •Mark Heisel — Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg
The GERmanium Detector Array, Gerda, is an experiment designed to search for the neutrinoless double beta decay of 76Ge. An array of bare high-purity germanium detectors made from isotopically modified material (76Ge enriched to 86%) is operated in a cryostat with 65 m3 of liquid argon. The experiment aims at exploring neutrinoless double beta decay half-lives up to 1.4·1026 yr. This will be achieved by collecting an exposure of about 100 kg·yr in two phases. The first phase is taking data since November 2011 with a background index of about 2·10−2 cts/(keV·kg·yr) in the region of interest at the Q–value of the decay (2039 keV). The second phase will commence in 2013 with the deployment of additional 20 kg of enriched thick-window broad energy germanium detectors (BEGe) together with an instrumentation to detect the liquid argon scintillation light. The design goal of phase II is to reduce the background further by a factor 10 w.r. to the current background index. This talk summarises the GERDA activities and results obtained to date. In particular latest numbers on the background index and the half life of the two-neutrino double beta decay are reported. The region of interest is concealed due to a blind analysis until summer 2013.