Speaker
Description
The origin of neutrino masses remains shrouded in mystery. One of the possible scenarios is that neutrinos have Majorana masses, which leads to neutrinoless double-beta decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$). CANDLES is a project to search for the $0\nu\beta\beta$ events from ${}^{48}\mathrm{Ca}$, which has a relatively high Q$_{\beta\beta}$-value of $4.27\,$MeV among the known double beta decay nuclei. We developed a CANDLES-III system with 96 $\mathrm{CaF}_2$ scintillation crystals with natural Ca isotope, which corresponds to $350\,$g of ${}^{48}\mathrm{Ca}$, and took data with about $652$ days of observation from $2016$. We are preparing a method to reduce $\beta$-decay background events to increase the sensitivity to the signal.
In this talk, a development of the method for background reduction and the latest status of the search for the $0\nu\beta\beta$ will be reported.
| In-person participation | No |
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