Double beta decay study of 48Ca by CaF2 scintillator

Abstract A CaF 2 scintillation detector system (ELEGANT VI) is developed to search for neutrinoless double beta decay (0νDBD) of 48 Ca. No events were observed around the Q -value energy region after the analysis of 4.23 kg yr data. To derive the lower limit for the half-life, the expected number of background events was estimated by a Monte Carlo simulation using the measured activities of 214 Bi and 220 Rn inside CaF 2 crystals. A new lower limit is obtained to be 1.8 × 10 22 yr at the 90% C.L.