Physics (Internal)

Searching for Majorana neutrinos with NEXT

This event is part of the HEE Seminar Series.

Neutrinos are the only particles of the Standard Model that could be of Majorana nature, a characteristic that would give considerable strength to theories that propose to explain the mass of these elusive particles and that intend to explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry. After reviewing this intriguing property of neutrinos, I will explain how searching for neutrinoless double beta decays with the NEXT experiment could give us a unique opportunity to discover a Majorana neutrino. The detector technology, a Xenon High Pressure Time Projection Chamber, offers several key advantages, including excellent energy resolution and powerful event classification based on track topology. After reviewing the fundamentals of the experiment, I will highlight recent results from the NEXT-White prototype, which has been acquiring data at the Laboratorio Subterráneo de Canfranc (LSC), in Spain, for the last 3 years, showing excellent performance. I will discuss as well the status and prospects of the upcoming NEXT-100, expected to start its operation in early 2020, as well as the prospects for a ton-scale experiment.