Search for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay with NEMO 3 and SuperNEMO

TL;DR

The paper reports on the NEMO 3 experiment's search for neutrinoless double beta decay, setting new limits on decay half-lives, and discusses the development of the SuperNEMO experiment with larger isotope mass for future detection.

Contribution

It presents new experimental limits on neutrinoless double beta decay and introduces the SuperNEMO project as an advancement over NEMO 3.

Findings

NEMO 3 set a half-life limit of >5.8×10^23 years for 100-Mo.

First measurement of 130-Te two-neutrino double beta decay half-life.

Development of SuperNEMO with 100-200 kg of isotopes for future studies.

Abstract

Since 2003 the NEMO~3 experiment has been searching for neutrinoless double beta decay using about 10 kg of enriched isotopes. A limit of T_(1/2)(0nu) > 5.8 10**23 years at 90 % CL has been obtained for 100-Mo from the first two years of data. Several measurements of two-neutrino double beta decays have also been performed. A first NEMO 3 measurement of the half-life of 130-Te is presented, giving a value of T_(1/2)(2nu) = (7.6 +- 1.5 (stat) +- 0.8 (syst)) 10**20 years. In parallel, there is an active R&D programme for the SuperNEMO experiment which is expected to commence data taking in 2012-2013 with 100-200 kg of enriched isotopes.