arXiv subjects

Jason Detwiler

Publications and source records attributed to Jason Detwiler.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Statistical sensitivity of neutrinoless double-beta decay exchange mechanism discrimination by tracking experiments

Reconstruction of the individual energies and the opening angle between the electrons emitted in neutrinoless double-beta decay can probe the nature of the beyond-the-Standard-Model exchange mechanism that underlies the process. Although it is often stated that discrimination of the mechanism would require such measurements to be performed with high statistics, we show that this is not the case. If a single mechanism dominates the process, its discrimination at the 1$\sigma$ level is already achieved with just a few well-reconstructed events; only $\sim$10 such events are required to reach 3$\sigma$-level discovery sensitivity. In the presence of realistic reconstruction uncertainties, this requirement increases to $\sim$25 events, indicating that substantial discrimination power is retained as long as backgrounds remain small. We conclude that the pursuit of tracking detectors for exchange-mechanism discrimination remains valuable even for ``discovery-class'' experiments in which only a few signal counts are expected.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

The lowest-radiation environments in the Solar System: new opportunities for underground rare-event searches

We study neutrino, muon, and gamma-ray fluxes in extraterrestrial environments in our Solar System via semi-analytical estimates and Monte Carlo simulations. In sites with negligible atmosphere, we find a strong reduction in the cosmic-ray-induced neutrino and muon fluxes relative to their intensities on Earth. Neutrinos with energies between 50 MeV and 100 TeV show particularly strong suppression, by as much as 10$^3$, even at shallow depths. The solar neutrino suppression increases as the square of the site's distance from the Sun. Natural radiation due to nuclear decay is also expected to be lower in many of these locations and may be reduced to effectively negligible levels in the liquid water environments. The sites satisfying these characteristics represent an opportunity for greatly extending the physics reach of underground searches in fundamental physics, such as searches for WIMP Dark Matter, neutrinoless double-beta decay, the diffuse supernova neutrinos, and neutrinos from nearby supernova. As a potential near-term target, we propose a measurement of muon and gamma-ray fluxes in an accessible underground lunar site such as the Mare Tranquillitatis Pit to perform a first measurement of the prompt component in cosmic-ray-induced particle production, and to constrain lunar evolution models.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2015

Status Update of the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay Experiment

Neutrinoless double beta decay searches play a major role in determining neutrino properties, in particular the Majorana or Dirac nature of the neutrino and the absolute scale of the neutrino mass. The consequences of these searches go beyond neutrino physics, with implications for Grand Unification and leptogenesis. The \textsc{Majorana} Collaboration is assembling a low-background array of high purity Germanium (HPGe) detectors to search for neutrinoless double-beta decay in $^{76}$Ge. The \textsc{Majorana Demonstrator}, which is currently being constructed and commissioned at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota, will contain 44 kg (30 kg enriched in $^{76}$Ge) of HPGe detectors. Its primary goal is to demonstrate the scalability and background required for a tonne-scale Ge experiment. This is accomplished via a modular design and projected background of less than 3 cnts/tonne-yr in the region of interest. The experiment is currently taking data with the first of its enriched detectors.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2003

Recent Results from KamLAND

The Kamioka Liquid-scintillator Anti-Neutrino Detector (KamLAND) has detected for the first time the disappearance of electron antineutrinos from a terrestrial source at the 99.95% C.L. Interpreted in terms of neutrino oscillations, the best fit to the KamLAND data gives a mixing angle 1.0 and a mass-squared difference 6.9 x 10^-5 eV^2, in excellent agreement with the Large Mixing Angle solution to the solar neutrino problem. Assuming CPT invariance, this result excludes other solutions to the solar neutrino problem at > 99.95% C.L.

hep-ex↗