PT Journal
AU NEXT Collaboration (Martin-Albo, Jea
   Muñoz Vidal, J
   Ferrario, P
   Nebot-Guinot, M
   Gomez-Cadenas, JJ
   Alvarez, V
   Carcel, S
   Carrion, JV
   Cervera-Villanueva, A
   Diaz, J
   Laing, A
   Liubarsky, I
   Lopez-March, N
   Lorca, D
   Martinez, A
   Novella, P
   Palmeiro, P
   Querol, M
   Renner, J
   Rodriguez, J
   Serra, L
   Simon, A
   Sorel, M
   Yahlali, N
TI Sensitivity of NEXT-100 to neutrinoless double beta decay
SO Journal of High Energy Physics
JI J. High Energy Phys.
PY 2016
BP 159
EP 30pp
VL 05
IS 5
DI 10.1007/JHEP05(2016)159
LA English
DE Dark Matter and Double Beta Decay (experiments); Rare decay
AB NEXT-100 is an electroluminescent high-pressure xenon gas time projection chamber that will search for the neutrinoless double beta (0v beta beta) decay of Xe-136. The detector possesses two features of great value for 0v beta beta searches: energy resolution better than 1% FWHM at the Q value of Xe-136 and track reconstruction for the discrimination of signal and background events. This combination results in excellent sensitivity, as discussed in this paper. Material-screening measurements and a detailed Monte Carlo detector simulation predict a background rate for NEXT-100 of at most 4 x 10(-4) counts keV(-1) kg(-1) yr(-1). Accordingly, the detector will reach a sensitivity to the 0v beta beta-decay half-life of 2.8 x 10(25) years (90% CL) for an exposure of 100 kg.year, or 6.0 x 10(25) years after a run of 3 effective years.
ER