Speaker
M. Patrick Decowski
(University of Amsterdam / Nikhef)
Description
The decade-old KamLAND neutrino detector entered a new phase two years
ago, with the goal of studying neutrinoless double beta decay in
${}^{136}$Xe. To achieve this goal, the detector was augmented with a small
balloon at the center of the detector, filled with liquid scintillator
loaded with about 400\,kg of 91\% enriched ${}^{136}$Xe. The KamLAND-Zen
collaboration recently reported on new neutrinoless double beta decay
search results with an exposure of 89.5\,kg-yr to this ${}^{136}$Xe
target. These findings, together with results reported by EXO-200,
allow to perform the most stringent test to date on the claimed
observation of $0\nu2\beta$ in ${}^{76}$Ge. An unanticipated background,
most likely due to ${}^{110m}$Ag, limited KamLAND-Zen's ability to further
study $0\nu2\beta$ and the collaboration embarked on a purification
campaign to reduce this background. I will describe our latest
$0\nu2\beta$ and $2\nu2\beta$ results, give a status of the detector and
provide an outlook for the future of KamLAND-Zen.
Primary author
M. Patrick Decowski
(University of Amsterdam / Nikhef)
