Title: The Path to a 1 ton germanium detector to search for neutrinoless double beta decay

Speaker: Dr. Iris Abt, The Max-Planck Institut fuer Physik

Time and place: 12:30,October 8 (Monday), 2012, Lecture Hall/INPAC

Abstract:

The physics of neutrinos andneutrinoless double beta decay is briefly reviewed. An overview of the experimental options to search for neutrinoless double beta decay is given with special emphasis on the germanium option. The different shielding technologies as implemented by the GERDA and MAYORANA collaborations are reviewed and ideas are discussed how to get to a 1 ton scale experiment.

Biography:

Dr. Iris Abt, senior scientist at the Max-Planck Institut fuer Physik. She is the project manager of the group developing germanium detectors, GeDet, and of the MPI-ZEUS group. She is the physics chair-person of the ZEUS collaboration at DESY Hamburg. She was responsible for the silicon detector modules of the HERA-B experiment at DESY. She has been working on semiconductor devices, silicon and germanium, for more than 20 years. She designed the 18-fold segmented HPGeDs, which were verified as prototypes for GERDA Phase-II. She designed the “snap-contacts” for the readout and she led the MPI team that demonstrated the stable operation of an 18-fold segmented prototype detector submerged in cryogenic liquid. Members of her team developed a new pulse shape simulation for segmented detectors and verified it. Dr. Abt also initiated the construction of the world most advanced test stand for HPGeDs currently being commissioned. It will allow scans of detectors with alpha, beta and gamma sources as well as with an infrared laser.