MOON for spectroscopic studies of double beta decays and the present status of the MOON-1 prototype detector

The MOON (Molybdenum Observatory Of Neutrinos) project, as an extension of ELEGANT V, aims at spectroscopic studies of double beta decays from 100Mo with a sensitivity of the Majorana neutrino mass around 30 meV. Measurements with good energy and position resolutions enable one to select true signals and to reject background ones. A prototype MOON detector (MOON Phase-1A) with 142 g 100Mo was built and is running at the Oto underground laboratory. The present report describes briefly the outline of the MOON project and the present status of MOON-1.