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arXiv · 1906.11457

Searching for Neutrino-less Double Beta Decay of $^{136}$Xe with PandaX-II Liquid Xenon Detector

Abstract

We report the Neutrino-less Double Beta Decay (NLDBD) search results from PandaX-II dual-phase liquid xenon time projection chamber. The total live time used in this analysis is 403.1 days from June 2016 to August 2018. With NLDBD-optimized event selection criteria, we obtain a fiducial mass of 219 kg of natural xenon. The accumulated xenon exposure is 242 kg$\cdot$yr, or equivalently 22.2 kg$\cdot$yr of $^{136}$Xe exposure. At the region around $^{136}$Xe decay Q-value of 2458 keV, the energy resolution of PandaX-II is 4.2%. We find no evidence of NLDBD in PandaX-II and establish a lower limit for decay half-life of 2.4 $ \times 10^{23} $ yr at the 90% confidence level, which corresponds to an effective Majorana neutrino mass $m_{ββ} < (1.3 - 3.5)$ eV. This is the first NLDBD result reported from a dual-phase xenon experiment.

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Kaixiang Ni, Yihui Lai, Abdusalam Abdukerim, Wei Chen, Xun Chen, Yunhua Chen, Xiangyi Cui, Yingjie Fan, Deqing Fang, Changbo Fu, Lisheng Geng, Karl Giboni, Franco Giuliani, Linhui Gu, Xuyuan Guo, Ke Han, Changda He, Di Huang, Yan Huang, Yanlin Huang, Zhou Huang, Peng Ji, Xiangdong Ji, Yonglin Ju, Kun Liang, Huaxuan Liu, Jianglai Liu, Wenbo Ma, Yugang Ma, Yajun Mao, Yue Meng, Parinya Namwongsa, Jinhua Ning, Xuyang Ning, Xiangxiang Ren, Changsong Shang, Lin Si, Andi Tan, Anqing Wang, Hongwei Wang, Meng Wang, Qiuhong Wang, Siguang Wang, Xiuli Wang, Zhou Wang, Mengmeng Wu, Shiyong Wu, Jingkai Xia, Mengjiao Xiao, Pengwei Xie, Binbin Yan, Jijun Yang, Yong Yang, Chunxu Yu, Jumin Yuan, Dan Zhang, Hongguang Zhang, Tao Zhang, Li Zhao, Qibin Zheng, Jifang Zhou, Ning Zhou, Xiaopeng Zhou. 2019-06-27. Searching for Neutrino-less Double Beta Decay of $^{136}$Xe with PandaX-II Liquid Xenon Detector. https://doi.org/10.1088/1674-1137%2F43%2F11%2F113001

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