Astroparticle Physics with a Customized Low-Background Broad Energy Germanium Detector

TL;DR

This paper discusses the development and deployment of a customized low-background Broad Energy Germanium detector for rare event searches like neutrinoless double-beta decay and dark matter detection, emphasizing its features and performance in underground environments.

Contribution

It introduces a specialized BEGe detector optimized for low-background experiments and reports its deployment and characterization in an underground setting.

Findings

Low electronic noise and excellent pulse shape analysis capabilities.

Successful deployment in a low-background underground facility.

Potential for use in neutrinoless double-beta decay and dark matter searches.

Abstract

The MAJORANA Collaboration is building the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, a 60 kg array of high purity germanium detectors housed in an ultra-low background shield at the Sanford Underground Laboratory in Lead, SD. The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR will search for neutrinoless double-beta decay of 76Ge while demonstrating the feasibility of a tonne-scale experiment. It may also carry out a dark matter search in the 1-10 GeV/c^2 mass range. We have found that customized Broad Energy Germanium (BEGe) detectors produced by Canberra have several desirable features for a neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment, including low electronic noise, excellent pulse shape analysis capabilities, and simple fabrication. We have deployed a customized BEGe, the MAJORANA Low-Background BEGe at Kimballton (MALBEK), in a low-background cryostat and shield at the Kimballton Underground Research Facility in Virginia. This paper will focus on the detector characteristics and measurements that can be performed with such a radiation detector in a low-background environment.