Results of the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR’s Search for Double-Beta Decay of 76Ge to Excited States of 76Se

Author(s): Guinn, IS; Arnquist, IJ; Avignone, FT; Barabash, AS; Barton, CJ; Bertrand, FE; Bos, B; Busch, M; Buuck, M; Caldwell, TS; Chan, YD; Christofferson, CD; Chu, PH; Clark, ML; Cuesta, C; Detwiler, JA; Drobizhev, A; Edwins, DW; Efremenko, Y; Ejiri, H; Elliott, SR; Gilliss, T; Giovanetti, GK; Green, MP; Gruszko, J; Guiseppe, VE; Haufe, CR; Hegedus, RJ; Henning, R; Hervas Aguilar, D; Hoppe, EW; Hostiuc, A; Kidd, MF; Kim, I; Kouzes, RT; Lopez, AM; Lopez-Castano, JM; Martin, EL; Martin, RD; Massarczyk, R; Meijer, SJ; Mertens, S; Myslik, J; Oli, TK; Othman, G; Pettus, W; Poon, AWP; Radford, DC; Rager, J; Reine, AL; Rielage, K; Ruof, NW; Stortini, MJ; Tedeschi, D; Varner, RL; Wilkerson, JF; Wiseman, C; Xu, W; Yu, CH; Zhu, BX | Abstract: The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR is searching for double-beta decay of 76Ge to excited states (E.S.) in 76Se using a modular array of high purity Germanium detectors. 76Ge can decay into three E.S.s of 76Se. The E.S. decays have a clear event signature consisting of a ββ-decay with the prompt emission of one or two γ-rays, resulting in with high probability in a multi-site event. The granularity of the DEMONSTRATOR detector array enables powerful discrimination of this event signature from backgrounds. Using 21.3 kg-y of isotopic exposure, the DEMONSTRATOR has set world leading limits for each E.S. decay, with 90% CL lower half-life limits in the range of (0.56 2.1) ⋅ 1024 y. In particular, for the 2v transition to the first 0+ E.S. of 76Se, a lower half-life limit of 0.68 ⋅ 1024 at 90% CL was achieved.