Measurement of the double-beta decay half-life and search for the neutrinoless double-beta decay of ⁴⁸Ca with the NEMO-3 detector

R. Arnold (1) , C. Augier (2) , A. M. Bakalyarov , J. D. Baker , A. S. Barabash , A. Basharina-Freshville , S. Blondel (2) , S. Blot , M. Bongrand (2) , V. Brudanin , J. Busto (3) , A. J. Caffrey , S. Calvez (2) , M. Cascella , C. Cerna (4) , J. P. Cesar , A. Chapon (5) , E. Chauveau , A. Chopra , D. Duchesneau (6) , D. Durand (5) , V. Egorov , G. Eurin (2) , J. J. Evans , L. Fajt , D. Filosofov , R. Flack , X. Garrido (2) , H. Gómez (2) , B. Guillon (5) , P. Guzowski , R. Hodák , A. Huber (4) , P. Hubert (4) , C. Hugon (4) , S. Jullian (2) , A. Klimenko , O. Kochetov , S. I. Konovalov , V. Kovalenko , D. Lalanne (2) , K. Lang , V. I. Lebedev , Y. Lemière (5) , T. Le Noblet (6) , Z. Liptak , X. R. Liu , P. Loaiza (2) , G. Lutter (4) , F. Mamedov , C. Marquet (4) , F. Mauger (5) , B. Morgan , J. Mott , I. Nemchenok , M. Nomachi , F. Nova , F. Nowacki (1) , H. Ohsumi , R. B. Pahlka , F. Perrot (4) , F. Piquemal (4, 7) , P. Povinec , P. Přidal , Y. A. Ramachers , A. Remoto (6) , J. L. Reyss (8) , B. Richards , C. L. Riddle , E. Rukhadze , N. I. Rukhadze , R. Saakyan , R. Salazar , X. Sarazin (2) , Yu. Shitov , L. Simard (9, 2) , F. Šimkovic , A. Smetana , K. Smolek , A. Smolnikov , S. Söldner-Rembold , B. Soulé (4) , I. Štekl , J. Suhonen , C. S. Sutton , G. Szklarz (2) , J. Thomas , V. Timkin , S. Torre , Vl. I. Tretyak , V. I. Tretyak , V. I. Umatov , I. Vanushin , C. Vilela , V. Vorobel , D. Waters , S. V. Zhukov , A. Žukauskas

1 IPHC - Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien
2 LAL - Laboratoire de l'Accélérateur Linéaire
3 CPPM - Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseille
4 CENBG - Centre d'Etudes Nucléaires de Bordeaux Gradignan
5 LPCC - Laboratoire de physique corpusculaire de Caen
6 LAPP - Laboratoire d'Annecy de Physique des Particules
7 LSM - UMR 6417 - Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane
8 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]
9 IUF - Institut Universitaire de France

The NEMO-3 experiment at the Modane Underground Laboratory investigates the double-beta decay of ⁴⁸Ca. Using 5.25 yr of data recorded with a 6.99 g sample of ⁴⁸Ca, approximately 150 double-beta decay candidate events are selected with a signal-to-background ratio greater than 3. The half-life for the two-neutrino double-beta decay of ⁴⁸Ca is measured to be T₁^{/2 2 ν}=[6. 4_-0.6^+0.7(stat₎^{-0.9 +1.2}(syst ) ]×1 0¹⁹ yr . A search for neutrinoless double-beta decay of ⁴⁸Ca yields a null result, and a corresponding lower limit on the half-life is found to be T₁^{/2 0 ν}>2.0 ×1 0²² yr at 90% confidence level, translating into an upper limit on the effective Majorana neutrino mass of ⟨m_{β β}⟩<6.0 - 26 eV , with the range reflecting different nuclear matrix element calculations. Limits are also set on models involving Majoron emission and right-handed currents.

Keywords: High Energy Physics - Experiment; Nuclear Experiment; Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors

Domains: Nuclear Experiment [nucl-ex]; Instrumentation and Detectors [physics.ins-det]; High Energy Physics - Experiment [hep-ex]

R. Arnold, C. Augier, A. M. Bakalyarov, J. D. Baker, A. S. Barabash, et al.. Measurement of the double-beta decay half-life and search for the neutrinoless double-beta decay of ⁴⁸Ca with the NEMO-3 detector. Physical Review D, 2016, 93, pp.112008. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevD.93.112008⟩. ⟨insu-03721846⟩