First Limit on the Direct Detection of Lightly Ionizing Particles for Electric Charge as Low as \(e\)/1000 with the \textsc{Majorana Demonstrator}

The \textsc{Majorana Demonstrator} is an ultra low-background experiment searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay in \(^{76}\)Ge. The heavily shielded array of germanium detectors, placed nearly a mile underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota, also allows se...

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Published in:arXiv.org 2018-05
Main Authors: Alvis, S I, Arnquist, I J, Avignone, F T, Barabash, A S, Barton, C J, Bertrand, F E, Brudanin, V, Busch, M, Buuck, M, Caldwell, T S, Y-D, Chan, Christofferson, C D, P -H Chu, Cuesta, C, Detwiler, J A, Dunagan, C, Efremenko, Yu, Ejiri, H, Elliott, S R, Gilliss, T, Giovanetti, G K, Green, M P, Gruszko, J, Guinn, I S, Guiseppe, V E, Haufe, C R, Hehn, L, Henning, R, Hoppe, E W, Howe, M A, Konovalov, S I, Kouzes, R T, Lopez, A M, Martin, R D, Massarczyk, R, Meijer, S J, Mertens, S, Myslik, J, O'Shaughnessy, C, Othman, G, Pettus, W, Poon, A W P, Radford, D C, Rager, J, Reine, A L, Rielage, K, Robertson, R G H, Ruof, N W, Shanks, B, Shirchenko, M, Suriano, A M, Tedeschi, D, Varner, R L, Vasilyev, S, Vorren, K, White, B R, Wilkerson, J F, Wiseman, C, W Xu, Yakushev, E, C -H Yu, Yumatov, V, Zhitnikov, I, Zhu, B X
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Beta decay
Germanium
Relativistic particles
Searching
Standard model (particle physics)
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The \textsc{Majorana Demonstrator} is an ultra low-background experiment searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay in \(^{76}\)Ge. The heavily shielded array of germanium detectors, placed nearly a mile underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota, also allows searches for new exotic physics. Free, relativistic, lightly-ionizing particles with electrical charges less than \(e\) are forbidden by the standard model but predicted by some of its extensions. If such particles exist, they might be detected in the \textsc{Majorana Demonstrator} by searching for multiple- detector events with individual-detector energy depositions down to 1 keV. This search is background free and no candidate events have been found in 285 days of data taking. New direct-detection limits are set for the flux of lightly ionizing particles for charges as low as \(e\)/1000.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1801.10145