Münster 2017 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 24: Fundamental Symmetries I

HK 24.6: Vortrag

Dienstag, 28. März 2017, 16:00–16:15, F 073

Studies of cosmogenic neutron activation of natural Tellurium — •Steffen Turkat, Alexander Domula, Valentina Lozza, and Kai Zuber — TU Dresden, Institut für Kern- und Teilchenphysik, Germany

Due to its relative natural abundance of 34.08 % and its high Q-Value of 2.53 MeV, the radionuclide ¹³⁰Te is a perfect candidate for studying the neutrinoless double beta decay (0ν 2β). This isotope is currently selected by two experiments: CUORE and SNO⁺. Important backgrounds for the 0ν 2β searches are the long-lived, high Q-value isotopes which can be produced by the activation of the target material by high-energetic cosmic neutrons during the period it spends on surface (like during transport). An example is ¹²⁴Sb. Due to its high Q-value this radionuclide would create a background signal in the expected region of the neutrinoless double beta decay of ¹³⁰Te.

An experiment at iThemba LABS in South Africa was performed irradiating Tellurium probes by a neutron beam. The emitted gamma spectra of the activated probes were measured using high purity Germanium Detectors.

This talk will describe the analysis of the collected gamma spectra with the extraction of both short- and long-lived radionuclides. The Germanium detectors are fully characterized comparing data to Monte-Carlo Simulations. Additionally, correction factors for summation and for the geometry are obtained. Average cross section values have been extracted and compared to theoretical predictions.