Search for neutrinoless double- β decay in Ge 76 with 26 kg yr of exposure from the M ajorana D emonstrator SEARCH for NEUTRINOLESS DOUBLE- β DECAY ... S. I. ALVIS et al.

Author(s): Alvis, SI; Arnquist, IJ; Avignone, FT; Barabash, AS; Barton, CJ; Basu, V; Bertrand, FE; Bos, B; Busch, M; Buuck, M; Caldwell, TS; Chan, Y-D; Christofferson, CD; Chu, P-H; Clark, M; Cuesta, C; Detwiler, JA; Efremenko, Yu; Ejiri, H; Elliott, SR; Gilliss, T; Giovanetti, GK; Green, MP; Gruszko, J; Guinn, IS; Guiseppe, VE; Haufe, CR; Hegedus, RJ; Hehn, L; Henning, R; Hervas Aguilar, D; Hoppe, EW; Howe, MA; Kidd, MF; Konovalov, SI; Kouzes, RT; Lopez, AM; Martin, RD; Massarczyk, R; Meijer, SJ; Mertens, S; Myslik, J; Othman, G; Pettus, W; Piliounis, A; Poon, AWP; Radford, DC; Rager, J; Reine, AL; Rielage, K; Ruof, NW; Shanks, B; Shirchenko, M; Tedeschi, D; Varner, RL; Vasilyev, S; White, BR; Wilkerson, JF; Wiseman, C; Xu, W; Yakushev, E; Yu, C-H; Yumatov, V; Zhitnikov, I; Zhu, BX | Abstract: © 2019 American Physical Society. The Majorana Collaboration is operating an array of high-purity Ge detectors to search for the neutrinoless double-β decay of Ge76. The Majorana Demonstrator consists of 44.1 kg of Ge detectors (29.7 kg enriched to 88% in Ge76) split between two modules constructed from ultraclean materials. Both modules are contained in a low-background shield at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota. We present updated results on the search for neutrinoless double-β decay in Ge76 with 26.0±0.5 kg yr of enriched exposure. With the Demonstrator's energy resolution of 2.53 keV FWHM at Qββ, which is the best among all neutrinoless double-β decay experiments, we observe one event in the region of interest with 0.65 events expected from the estimated background, resulting in a lower limit on the Ge76 neutrinoless double-β decay half-life of 2.7×1025 yr [90% confidence level (CL)] with a median sensitivity of 4.8×1025 yr (90% CL). Depending on the matrix elements used, a 90% CL upper limit on the effective Majorana neutrino mass in the range of 200-433 meV is obtained. The measured background in the configurations with full shielding and optimized grounding is 11.9±2.0 counts/(FWHM t yr).