THE GERDA NEUTRINOLESS-DOUBLE-BETADECAY EXPERIMENT

摘要

Neutrinoless double beta (0vββ-decay could be the key to understanding thenature of the neutrino. The GErmanium Detector Array (GERDA) is designedto search for 000-decay of the isotope 76Ge. Germanium crystals enriched in76Ge, acting as source and detector simultaneously, will be submerged directlyinto their ultra pure cooling medium that also serves as a radiation shield. Thisconcept will allow for a reduction of the background by up to two orders ofmagnitudes with respect to earlier experiments.