AMoRE experiment: a search for neutrinoless double beta decay of 100Mo isotope with 40Ca100MoO4 cryogenic scintillation detector

• Published in: Journal of physics. Conference series 2012-07, Vol.375 (4)
• Main Authors: Bhang, H, Boiko, R S, Chernyak, D M, Choi, J H, Choi, S, Danevich, F A, Efendiev, K V, Enss, C, Fleischmann, A, Gangapshev, A M, Gastaldo, L, Gezhaev, A M, Hwang, Y S, Jiang, H, Kang, W G, Kazalov, V V, Khanbekov, N D, Kim, H J, Kim, K B, Kim, S K, Kim, S C, Kim, Y D, Kim, Y H, Kobychev, V V, Kornoukhov, V N, Kuzminov, V V, Mokina, V M, Lee, H S, Lee, J I, Lee, J M, Lee, K B, Lee, M J, Lee, M K, Lee, S J, J Li, X Li, Myung, S S, Nikolaiko, A S, Olsen, S, Panasenko, S I, Park, H, Poda, D V, Podviyanuk, R B, Polischuk, O G, Polozov, P A, Ratkevich, S S, Satou, Y, So, J H, Tanida, K, Tretyak, V I, Yakimenko, S P, Yue, Q, Yuryev, Y
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Beta decay; Calcium compounds; Calcium isotopes; Crystals; Experiments; Neutrinos; Phonons; Physics; Radioisotopes; Scintillation; Scintillation counters
• ISSN: 1742-6588; 1742-6596
• DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/375/1/042023

AMoRE (Advanced Mo based Rare process Experiment) collaboration is going to use calcium molybdate crystals as cryogenic scintillation detector in a search for neutrinoless DBD of 100Mo isotope. Simultaneous detection of phonons and light will be used to reject internal background. A FWHM resolution of 0.2% in the phonon channel has been achieved with a 0.5 cm3 crystal. Several 40Ca100MoO4 crystals (≈ 0.5 kg) have been developed from enriched 100Mo and depleted 40Ca materials. The light yield of these crystals has been shown to be comparable with reference CaMoO4 scintillators for temperatures ranging down to 8 K. The content of dangerous radioisotopes in the crystals is under measurement. The projected sensitivity of the experiment for a 250 kg × years exposure is lim T1/2 ∼ 3 × 1026 years, which corresponds to the effective Majorana neutrino mass ⟨mv⟩ ∼ 0.02 – 0.06 eV.