Physics & Astronomy ETDs

Publication Date

Spring 2-19-202

Abstract

Neutrinoless double beta decay is a hypothesized lepton-number-violating process in which two neutrons decay to two protons, producing two electrons but no electron antineutrinos. The LEGEND collaboration will search for this decay in 76Ge. To improve the argon active veto for LEGEND-1000, xenon doped argon was explored as an alternative active volume. Simulations using argon doped with 10 ppm xenon and pure liquid argon were used to predict the light yield from cosmic muons in a 100 liter cryogenic vessel. The simulations predicted that xenon doping would yield 1.83+/-0.02 more light, while an increase of 1.81+/-0.05 was measured. From the simulation, a lower limit on the attenuation length of 5.0 m was found for argon doped with 10 ppm xenon. Alternative xenon doped light collection designs were explored using simulation for LEGEND-1000. It was found that all designs provided significant improvements on light collection for the LEGEND-1000 active veto.

Degree Name

Physics

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Physics & Astronomy

First Committee Member (Chair)

Dinesh Lommba

Second Committee Member

Keith Rielage

Third Committee Member

Steven Elliott

Fourth Committee Member

Michael Gold

Fifth Committee Member

Douglas Fields

Language

English

Keywords

Neutrinolessdoublebetadecay, liquidargon, xenondoping, birksconstant

Document Type

Thesis

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