Calorimeter development for the SuperNEMO double beta decay experiment

TL;DR

This paper details the development and final design of a calorimeter for the SuperNEMO experiment, achieving the targeted energy resolution essential for detecting neutrinoless double-beta decay.

Contribution

It presents the R&D process and the final calorimeter design that meets the stringent energy resolution requirements for SuperNEMO.

Findings

Calorimeter achieved the target energy resolution of ~3%/sqrt(E)

Design uses large plastic scintillator blocks with photomultiplier tubes

Successfully met the challenging resolution goals for the experiment

Abstract

SuperNEMO is a double-$\beta$ decay experiment, which will employ the successful tracker-calorimeter technique used in the recently completed NEMO-3 experiment. SuperNEMO will implement 100 kg of double-$\beta$ decay isotope, reaching a sensitivity to the neutrinoless double-$\beta$ decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$) half-life of the order of $10^{26}$ yr, corresponding to a Majorana neutrino mass of 50-100 meV. One of the main goals and challenges of the SuperNEMO detector development programme has been to reach a calorimeter energy resolution, $\Delta$E/E, around 3%/$sqrt(E)$(MeV) $\sigma$, or 7%/$sqrt(E)$(MeV) FWHM (full width at half maximum), using a calorimeter composed of large volume plastic scintillator blocks coupled to photomultiplier tubes. We describe the R\&D programme and the final design of the SuperNEMO calorimeter that has met this challenging goal.