Würzburg 2018 – scientific programme
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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik
T 43: Neutrinophysik II
T 43.4: Talk
Tuesday, March 20, 2018, 17:25–17:40, Z6 - SR 2.012
Investigation of the double beta decay of Ge-76 into excited states of Se-76 with Gerda — •Birgit Schneider and Thomas Wester for the GERDA collaboration — TU Dresden, Institut für Kern- und Teilchenphysik, Germany
Gerda is an experiment searching for the neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay of 76Ge. The observation of such a decay would prove that the neutrino is its own antiparticle, a so called Majorana particle. This could give an indication of the effective Majorana neutrino mass and of the mass hierarchy realized in nature.
The neutrino accompanied double beta (2νββ) decay from the 0+ ground state of 76Ge into the 0+ ground state of 76Se has been measured by Gerda and its half life could be determined with unprecedented precision. Additionally, 76Ge can also decay into excited states of 76Se, however these transitions are phase space suppressed. The predicted half lives from theoretical calculations vary by several orders of magnitude, because of different nuclear models and their internal parameters. The observation of the 2νββ decay of 76Ge into excited states would be able to constrain these models and decrease their uncertainties. Additionally, models of the 0νββ decay, that rely on similar assumptions, would be improved.
The excited states analysis of the Gerda data is performed by counting coincident events within the Ge detector array and optimized with the help of Monte Carlo simulations. The talk will present the analysis technique and the first preliminary results of Gerda Phase II.
This project is partially funded by BMBF.