Calorimeter development for the SuperNEMO double beta decay experiment

Abstract SuperNEMO is a double- β 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- β decay isotope, reaching a sensitivity to the neutrinoless double- β decay ( 0 ν β β ) half-life of the order of 1 0 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, Δ E ∕ E , around 3 % ∕ E ( MeV ) σ , or 7 % ∕ 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.