Abstract
Observing nuclear neutrinoless double beta (0\(\nu \beta \beta\)) decay would be a revolutionary result in particle physics. Observing such a decay would prove that the neutrinos are their own antiparticles, help to study the absolute mass of neutrinos, explore the origin of their mass, and may explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry in our universe by lepton number violation. We propose developing a time projection chamber (TPC) using high-pressure \(^{82}\)SeF\(_6\) gas and Topmetal silicon sensors for readout in the China Jinping Underground Laboratory (CJPL) to search for neutrinoless double beta decay of \(^{82}\)Se, called the N\(\nu\)DEx experiment. Besides being located at CJPL with the world’s thickest rock shielding, N\(\nu\)DEx combines the advantages of the high \(Q_{\beta \beta }\) (2.996 MeV) of \(^{82}\)Se and the TPC’s ability to distinguish signal and background events using their different topological characteristics. This makes N\(\nu\)DEx unique, with great potential for low-background and high-sensitivity 0\(\nu \beta \beta\) searches. N\(\nu\)DEx-100, a N\(\nu\)DEx experiment phase with 100 kg of SeF\(_6\) gas, is being built, with plans to complete installation at CJPL by 2025. This report introduces 0\(\nu \beta \beta\) physics, the N\(\nu\)DEx concept and its advantages, and the schematic design of N\(\nu\)DEx-100, its subsystems, and background and sensitivity estimation.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Science Data Bank at https://doi.org/10.57760/sciencedb.13732, https://doi.org/10.57760/sciencedb.13734, https://cstr.cn/31253.11.sciencedb.13732, and https://cstr.cn/31253.11.sciencedb.13734.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection and analysis were performed by all authors. The first draft of the manuscript was written by C-SG, KC, C-GL, QH, PY, Y-LC, EC, SG, D-LF, and HQ. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Nu Xu is an editorial board member and was not involved in the editorial review, or the decision to publish this article. All authors declare that there are no competing interests.
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This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Nos. 2021YFA1601300 and 2022YFA1604703), From-0-to-1 Original Innovation Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. ZDBS-LY-SLH014), International Partner Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. GJHZ2067), and National Natural Science Foundation of China Youth Science Fund Project (No. 12105110).
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Cao, XG., Chang, YL., Chen, K. et al. NνDEx-100 conceptual design report. NUCL SCI TECH 35, 3 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41365-023-01360-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41365-023-01360-7