Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences (Apr 2021)

The NUMEN Project: An Update of the Facility Toward the Future Experimental Campaigns

  • Francesco Cappuzzello,
  • Francesco Cappuzzello,
  • Luis Acosta,
  • Clementina Agodi,
  • Ismail Boztosun,
  • Giuseppe A. Brischetto,
  • Giuseppe A. Brischetto,
  • Salvatore Calabrese,
  • Luciano Calabretta,
  • Daniela Calvo,
  • Luigi Campajola,
  • Luigi Campajola,
  • Vittoria Capirossi,
  • Vittoria Capirossi,
  • Diana Carbone,
  • Manuela Cavallaro,
  • Efrain Chávez,
  • Irene Ciraldo,
  • Irene Ciraldo,
  • Franck Delaunay,
  • Franck Delaunay,
  • Franck Delaunay,
  • Haris Djapo,
  • Carlo Ferraresi,
  • Carlo Ferraresi,
  • Paolo Finocchiaro,
  • Maria Fisichella,
  • Elisa M. Gandolfo,
  • Elisa M. Gandolfo,
  • Felice Iazzi,
  • Felice Iazzi,
  • Mauricio Moralles,
  • Lorenzo Neri,
  • Josè R. B. Oliveira,
  • Luciano Pandola,
  • Horia Petrascu,
  • Federico Pinna,
  • Federico Pinna,
  • Antonio D. Russo,
  • Diego Sartirana,
  • Onoufrios Sgouros,
  • S. O. Solakci,
  • Vasileios Soukeras,
  • Alessandro Spatafora,
  • Alessandro Spatafora,
  • Domenico Torresi,
  • Salvatore Tudisco,
  • Aydin Yildirim

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fspas.2021.668587
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8

Abstract

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The goal of NUMEN project is to access experimentally driven information on Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME) involved in the neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ) by accurate measurements of the cross sections of heavy-ion induced double charge-exchange reactions. In particular, the (18O, 18Ne) and (20Ne, 20O) reactions are adopted as tools for β+β+ and β−β− decays, respectively. The experiments are performed at INFN–Laboratory Nazionali del Sud (LNS) in Catania using the Superconducting Cyclotron to accelerate the beams and the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer to detect the reaction products. The measured cross sections are very low, limiting the present exploration to few selected isotopes of interest in the context of typically low-yield experimental runs. In order to make feasible a systematic study of all the candidate nuclei, a major upgrade of the LNS facility is foreseen to increase the experimental yield by more than two orders of magnitude. To this purpose, frontier technologies are being developed for both the accelerator and the detection systems. An update description of the NUMEN project is presented here, focusing on recent achievements from the R&D activity.

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