Speaker
Luciano Pandola
Description
Neutrinoless double-beta-decay could be the key to understanding the
nature of the neutrino: if observed it would prove its Majorana-nature and
the half-life of the decay would be a direct measure of the yet unknown
absolute scale of the neutrino mass.
The GErmanium Detector Array (GERDA) experiment at the INFN, Gran Sasso
Laboratory, Italy, is designed to investigate the double-beta-decay of the
isotope Ge-76. Germanium crystals enriched in Ge-76, acting as source and
detector simultaneously, will be submerged directly into their ultra pure
cooling medium (liquid argon) that also serves as a radiation shield. A
further reduction of the external background is achieved by means of a
2m-thick water buffer, which is operated as a Cherenkov detector to veto
cosmic-ray muons.
This concept will allow for a background reduction of up to two orders of
magnitudes with respect to earlier experiments - a key requirement for
further improvement of sensitivity. The design of the GERDA experiment
will be introduced and the current status of the experiment will be discussed.
