Hamburg 2016 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 23: Postersitzung

T 23.7: Poster

Montag, 29. Februar 2016, 13:30–14:30, VMP4 Foyer

Search for double beta decay processes of ¹²⁴Xe with XENON100 & XENON1T — •Alexander Fieguth — IKP, Westfälische-Wilhelms-Universität Münster

Driven by the search for dark matter particles the XENON dark matter project recently installed its next stage multi-ton experiment XENON1T at the LNGS, which will probe the spin-indpendent-WIMP-Nucleon cross section down to 2x10⁻⁴⁷cm². Besides its main purpose different particle physics topics can be addressed by the taken data. One example are the double beta decay processes of natural isotope ¹²⁴Xe. This isotope is expected to decay via two-neutrino double electron capture (2νECEC) and due to its high Q-value of 2864 keV additionally through 2νβ⁺β⁺. Since these processes have not been detected so far, there is only a lower limit the respective half-life (e.g.> 4.7x10²¹yr for 2νECEC). A detection of the 2νECEC is possible using XENON1T data by looking for its clear signature of secondary X-rays or Auger electrons and at least new lower half-life limits for all other decay channels can be obtained. While these processes are expected from standard model physics, a detection of a decay without neutrinos (e.g 0νECEC) would hint towards beyond the standard model physics and could derive conclusions on the neutrino mass. Until XENON1T is taking data, the search for all processes can be tested in the recorded data of its predecessor XENON100. This work is supported by BMBF under contract number 05A14PM1 and DFG (GRK 2149).