Abstract: In this Technical Design Report (TDR) we describe the NEXT-100 detector that will search for neutrinoless double beta decay (beta beta 0v) in Xe-136 at the Laboratorio Subterraneo de Canfranc (LSC), in Spain. The document formalizes the design presented in our Conceptual Design Report (CDR): an electroluminescence time projection chamber, with separate readout planes for calorimetry and tracking, located, respectively, behind cathode and anode. The detector is designed to hold a maximum of about 150 kg of xenon at 15 bar, or 100 kg at 10 bar. This option builds in the capability to increase the total isotope mass by 50% while keeping the operating pressure at a manageable level. The readout plane performing the energy measurement is composed of Hamamatsu R11410-10 photomultipliers, specially designed for operation in low-background, xenon-based detectors. Each individual PMT will be isolated from the gas by an individual, pressure resistant enclosure and will be coupled to the sensitive volume through a sapphire window. The tracking plane consists in an array of Hamamatsu S10362-11-050P MPPCs used as tracking pixels. They will be arranged in square boards holding 64 sensors (8 x 8) with a 1-cm pitch. The inner walls of the TPC, the sapphire windows and the boards holding the MPPCs will be coated with tetraphenyl butadiene (TPB), a wavelength shifter, to improve the light collection.

Abstract: We find that if general relativity is modified at the Planck scale by a Ricci-squared term, electrically charged black holes may be nonsingular. These objects concentrate their mass in a microscopic sphere of radius r(core) approximate to N(q)(1/2)l(P)/3, where l(P) is the Planck length and N-q is the number of electric charges. The singularity is avoided if the mass of the object satisfies the condition M-0(2) approximate to m(P)(2)alpha N-3/2(em)q(3)/2, where m(P) is the Planck mass and alpha(em) is the fine-structure constant. For astrophysical black holes this amount of charge is so small that their external horizon almost coincides with their Schwarzschild radius. We work within a first-order (Palatini) approach.

Abstract: Nuclear-medium effects on the weak structure functions F-2(x, Q(2)) and F-3(x, Q(2)) in charged-current neutrino and antineutrino induced deep-inelastic reactions in Pb-208 have been studied. The calculations have been performed in a theoretical model using relativistic nuclear spectral functions which incorporate Fermi motion, binding, and nucleon correlations. We have also included the pion and rho meson cloud contributions calculated from a microscopic model for meson-nucleus self-energies. Using these structure functions, differential scattering cross sections have been obtained and compared with the CERN Hybrid Oscillation Research Apparatus (CHORUS) data. The results for the ratios 2F(i)(Pb)/208F(i)(D), 4F(i)(Pb)/208F(i)(He), 12F(i)(Pb)/208F(i)(C), 16F(i)(Pb)/208F(i)(O), and 56F(i)(Pb)/208F(i)(Fe) (i = 2, 3) have also been obtained and compared with some of the phenomenological fits.