1. First Limit on the Direct Detection of Lightly Ionizing Particles for Electric Charge as Low as e/1000 with the Majorana Demonstrator
- Author
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Alvis, SI, Arnquist, IJ, Avignone, FT, Barabash, AS, Barton, CJ, Bertrand, FE, Brudanin, V, Busch, M, Buuck, M, Caldwell, TS, Chan, Y-D, Christofferson, CD, Chu, P-H, Cuesta, C, Detwiler, JA, Dunagan, C, Efremenko, Yu, Ejiri, H, Elliott, SR, Gilliss, T, Giovanetti, GK, Green, MP, Gruszko, J, Guinn, IS, Guiseppe, VE, Haufe, CR, Hehn, L, Henning, R, Hoppe, EW, Howe, MA, Konovalov, SI, Kouzes, RT, Lopez, AM, Martin, RD, Massarczyk, R, Meijer, SJ, Mertens, S, Myslik, J, O'Shaughnessy, C, Othman, G, Pettus, W, Poon, AWP, Radford, DC, Rager, J, Reine, AL, Rielage, K, Robertson, RGH, Ruof, NW, Shanks, B, Shirchenko, M, Suriano, AM, Tedeschi, D, Varner, RL, Vasilyev, S, Vorren, K, White, BR, Wilkerson, JF, Wiseman, C, Xu, W, Yakushev, E, Yu, C-H, Yumatov, V, Zhitnikov, I, and Zhu, BX
- Subjects
Nuclear and Plasma Physics ,Particle and High Energy Physics ,Physical Sciences ,Majorana Collaboration ,hep-ex ,astro-ph.CO ,physics.ins-det ,Mathematical Sciences ,Engineering ,General Physics ,Mathematical sciences ,Physical sciences - Abstract
The Majorana Demonstrator is an ultralow-background experiment searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay in ^{76}Ge. The heavily shielded array of germanium detectors, placed nearly a mile underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota, also allows searches for new exotic physics. Free, relativistic, lightly ionizing particles with an electrical charge less than e are forbidden by the standard model but predicted by some of its extensions. If such particles exist, they might be detected in the Majorana Demonstrator by searching for multiple-detector events with individual-detector energy depositions down to 1 keV. This search is background-free, and no candidate events have been found in 285 days of data taking. New direct-detection limits are set for the flux of lightly ionizing particles for charges as low as e/1000.
- Published
- 2018