Universe (Aug 2020)

The NUMEN Heavy Ion Multidetector for a Complementary Approach to the Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay

  • Paolo Finocchiaro,
  • Luis Acosta,
  • Clementina Agodi,
  • Carmen Altana,
  • Paulina Amador-Valenzuela,
  • Ismail Boztosun,
  • Sandro Brasolin,
  • Giuseppe A. Brischetto,
  • Oscar Brunasso,
  • Salvatore Calabrese,
  • Luciano Calabretta,
  • Daniela Calvo,
  • Vittoria Capirossi,
  • Francesco Cappuzzello,
  • Diana Carbone,
  • Manuela Cavallaro,
  • Efrain R. Chávez Lomeli,
  • Irene Ciraldo,
  • Grazia D’Agostino,
  • Franck Delaunay,
  • Haris Djapo,
  • Carlo Ferraresi,
  • Maria Fisichella,
  • David C. Flechas Garcia,
  • Felice Iazzi,
  • Laura La Fauci,
  • Gaetano Lanzalone,
  • Francesco La Via,
  • Roberto Linares,
  • Nilberto H. Medina,
  • Paulo Mereu,
  • Mauricio Moralles,
  • Josè R. B. Oliveira,
  • Luciano Pandola,
  • Alfio Pappalardo,
  • Horia Petrascu,
  • Federico Pinna,
  • Antonio D. Russo,
  • Diego Sartirana,
  • Onoufrios Sgouros,
  • Selcuk Oktay Solakci,
  • Vasilis Soukeras,
  • Alessandro Spatafora,
  • Domenico Torresi,
  • Salvatore Tudisco,
  • Aydin Yildirim,
  • Vinicius A. B. Zagatto

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/universe6090129
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6, no. 9
p. 129

Abstract

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Neutrinos are so far the most elusive known particles, and in the last decades many sophisticated experiments have been set up in order to clarify several questions about their intrinsic nature, in particular their masses, mass hierarchy, intrinsic nature of Majorana or Dirac particles. Evidence of the Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay (NDBD) would prove that neutrinos are Majorana particles, thus improving the understanding of the universe itself. Besides the search for several large underground experiments for the direct experimental detection of NDBD, the NUMEN experiment proposes the investigation of a nuclear mechanism strongly linked to this decay: the Double Charge Exchange reactions (DCE). As such reactions share with the NDBD the same initial and final nuclear states, they could shed light on the determination of the Nuclear Matrix Elements (NMEs), which play a relevant role in the decay. The physics of DCE is described elsewhere in this issue, while the focus of this paper will be on the challenging experimental apparatus currently under construction in order to fulfil the requirements of the NUMEN experiment. The overall structure of the technological improvement to the cyclotron, along with the newly developed detection systems required for tracking and identifying the reaction products and their final excitation level are described.

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