Probing neutrino mass with NEMO-3 and SuperNEMO

by Dr Ruben Saakyan (UC London)

Tuesday 27 Apr 2010, 17:00 → 18:30 Europe/Berlin

Universe

Neutrinoless double beta decay is the only practical way to understand the neutrino nature (Dirac or Majorana particle) and to observe full lepton number violation required by most GUT schemes. It may also turn out to be the only way to measure the absolute neutrino mass in the laboratory environment. SuperNEMO is a next generation neutrinoless double beta decay experiment based on the successful design approach of the NEMO-3 experiment currently running in the Modane Underground Laboratory in the Frejus Tunnel under the French-Italian Alps. The unique features of this approach are the ability to study almost any double beta decay isotope and reconstruction of the event topology which produces a “smoking gun” evidence for the process and may allow the underlying physics mechanism to be disentangled. I will review the results obtained with NEMO-3 and report on the status of the SuperNEMO project.