Particle Physics Group

NEMO 3 and SuperNEMO

The aim of the NEMO 3 (Neutrino Ettore Majorana Observatory) experiment is to search for neutrinoless double beta decay - a rare, lepton-number violating, nuclear decay process that would indicate the Majorana nature of neutrinos, as well as provide an estimate for the neutrino mass scale. The experiment is situated in the Fréjus underground laboratory near Modane, France. NEMO 3 is currently taking data from a variety of isotopes. We at Manchester are involved in NEMO 3 data analysis of Nd-150.

SuperNEMO is the next generation experiment to search for neutrinoless double beta decay. It will house 100 kg of isotopes, ten times more than NEMO 3, thus reaching a neutrino mass sensitivity of about 50 meV. The SuperNEMO detector will comprise several identical modules, each containing a source foil surrounded by a tracker with drift cells and a calorimeter. SuperNEMO is in the R & D phase and Manchester is currently working on detector development of the tracker and simulation.

The NEMO 3 and SuperNEMO collaboration meeting was held in Manchester on July 16-18, 2007 (webpage) and on June 6-10, 2011 (webpage).

The IoP half-day meeting on Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay was held on 21 November 2007 at the University of Manchester.

PEOPLE

• Stefan Söldner-Rembold
• Ray Thompson
• David Urner
• Jo Pater
• Julian Freestone
• Stefano de Capua
• Pawel Guzowski
• Emmanuel Chauveau
• Summer Blot

THESES & PAPERS

• "Measurement of the Two Neutrino Double Beta Decay Half-life of Nd-150 with the NEMO-3 Detector" MSc thesis by Kyiotaka Yamazaki, 2012.
  
• "Double Beta Decay of Nd-150 in NEMO-3 and Studies Towards the Design of SuperNEMO" PhD thesis by Christopher Jackson, 2010.
  
• "Development of the 90-Cell prototype for the SuperNEMO experiment" MPhys report by Mohammed Azmat and Andrew Walmsley, 2009.
  
• "Measurement of the Double Beta Decay Half-life of Nd-150 and Search for Neutrinoless Decay Modes with the NEMO-3 Detector", PhD thesis by Nasim Fatemi-Ghomi, 2009.
  
• "Investigation of Geiger cell properties for the SuperNEMO detector", MPhys report by Tom Conneely and Tim Head, 2008.
  
• "Studies of a prototype tracker for the double beta decay experiment SuperNEMO", MSc thesis by James Mylroie-Smith, 2007.
  
• "Studies on a simple model of the SuperNEMO tracking system", report by Killian Mueller, 2007.
  
• "Simulation and sensitivity studies for the double beta decay experiment SuperNEMO", MSc thesis by Darren Price, 2005.
  

FURTHER INFORMATION & LINKS

• SuperNEMO collaboration - offical site
  
• SuperNEMO document database DocDB (private)
  
• NEMO 3 and SuperNEMO software Wiki page (private)
  
• NEMO 3 and SuperNEMO indico agenda pages
• NEMO 3 and SuperNEMO collaboration meeting in Manchester, 16 - 18 July 2007
• Agenda from the Paris collaboration meeting in March 2007
• Agenda from the Jaca collaboration meeting in December 2006
• Agendas from older collaboration meetings
• Agendas from SuperNEMO software meetings
• Neutrinoless double-beta decay - important papers
  

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