Search

The MEG II experiment, based at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland, reports the result of a search for the decay μ + → e + γ from data taken in the first physics run in 2021. No excess of events over the expected background is observed, yielding an upper limit on the branching ratio of B (μ + → e + γ) < 7.5 × 10 - 13 (90% CL). The combination of this result and the limit obtained by MEG gives B (μ + → e + γ) < 3.1 × 10 - 13 (90% CL), which is the most stringent limit to date. A ten-fold larger sample of data is being collected during the years 2022–2023, and data-taking will continue in the coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The MEG II experiment, located at the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) in Switzerland, is the successor to the MEG experiment, which completed data taking in 2013. MEG II started fully operational data taking in 2021, with the goal of improving the sensitivity of the μ + → e + γ decay down to ∼ 6 × 10 - 14 almost an order of magnitude better than the current limit. In this paper, we describe the operation and performance of the experiment and give a new estimate of its sensitivity versus data acquisition time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a novel technique, called DSVP (Discrimination through Singular Vectors Projections), to discriminate spurious events within a dataset. The purpose of this paper is to lay down a general procedure which can be tailored for a broad variety of applications. After describing the general concept, we apply the algorithm to the problem of identifying nearly coincident events in low temperature microcalorimeters in order to push the time resolution close to its intrinsic limit. In fact, from simulated datasets it was possible to achieve an effective time resolution even shorter than the sampling time of the system considered. The obtained results are contextualized in the framework of the HOLMES experiment, which aims at directly measuring the neutrino mass with the calorimetric approach, allowing to significally improve its statistical sensitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the first direct search for lepton flavour violating muon decay mediated by a new light particle X, μ + → e + X , X → γ γ . This search uses a dataset resulting from 7.5 × 10 14 stopped muons collected by the MEG experiment at the Paul Scherrer Institut in the period 2009–2013. No significant excess is found in the mass region 20–45 MeV/c 2 for lifetimes below 40 ps, and we set the most stringent branching ratio upper limits in the mass region of 20–40 MeV/c 2 , down to O (10 - 11) at 90% confidence level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the first performance results obtained with microwave multiplexed Transition Edge Sensors prototypes specifically designed for the HOLMES experiment, a project aimed at directly measuring the electron neutrino mass through the calorimetric measurement of the 163 Ho electron capture spectrum. The detectors required for such an experiment feature a high energy resolution at the Q–value of the transition, around ∼ 2.8 keV, and a fast response time combined with the compatibility to be multiplexed in large arrays in order to collect a large statistics while keeping the pile-up contribution as small as possible. In addition, the design has to be suitable for future ion-implantation of 163 Ho. The results obtained in these tests allowed us to identify the optimal detector design among several prototypes. The chosen detector achieved an energy resolution of (4.5 ± 0.3) eV on the chlorine K α line, at ∼ 2.6 keV, obtained with an exponential rise time of 14 μ s. The achievements described in this paper pose a milestone for the HOLMES detectors, setting a baseline for the subsequent developments, aiming to the actual ion-implantation of the 163 Ho nuclei. In the first section the HOLMES experiment is outlined along with its physics goal, while in the second section the HOLMES detectors are described; the experimental set-up and the calibration source used for the measurements described in this paper are reported in Sects. 3 and 4, respectively; finally, the details of the data analysis and the results obtained are reported in Sect. 6. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The MEG experiment, designed to search for the μ+→e+γ decay, completed data-taking in 2013 reaching a sensitivity level of 5.3×10-13 for the branching ratio. In order to increase the sensitivity reach of the experiment by an order of magnitude to the level of 6×10-14, a total upgrade, involving substantial changes to the experiment, has been undertaken, known as MEG II. We present both the motivation for the upgrade and a detailed overview of the design of the experiment and of the expected detector performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]