Abstract
The Majorana Demonstrator is an ultralow-background experiment searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay in Ge76. 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.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 211804 |
| Journal | Physical Review Letters |
| Volume | 120 |
| Issue number | 21 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 25 2018 |
Funding
This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics under Awards No. DE-AC02-05CH11231, No. DE-AC05-00OR22725, No. DE-AC05-76RL0130, No. DE-AC52-06NA25396, No. DE-FG02-97ER41020, No. DE-FG02-97ER41033, No. DE-FG02-97ER41041, No. DE-SC0010254, No. DE-SC0012612, No. DE-SC0014445, and No. DE-SC0018060. We acknowledge support from the Particle Astrophysics Program and Nuclear Physics Program of the National Science Foundation through Grants No. MRI-0923142, No. PHY-1003399, No. PHY-1102292, No. PHY-1206314, and No. PHY-1614611. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the U.S. Department of Energy through the LANL/LDRD Program and through the PNNL/LDRD Program for this work. We acknowledge support from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Grant No. 15-02-02919. We acknowledge the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, funding reference No. SAPIN-2017-00023, and from the Canada Foundation from Innovation John R. Evans Leaders Fund. We thank the Yamaha Science Foundation Japan for their support. This research used resources provided by the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and by the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility. We thank our hosts and colleagues at the Sanford Underground Research Facility for their support.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Canada Foundation from Innovation John R. Evans Leaders Fund | |
| National Science Foundation | PHY-1003399, 0923142, 1102292, PHY-1206314, PHY-1614611, PHY-1102292, 1003399, MRI-0923142, 1206314 |
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Office of Science | |
| Nuclear Physics | DE-AC05-00OR22725, DE-AC05-76RL0130, DE-AC02-05CH11231, DE-SC0012612, DE-AC52-06NA25396, DE-FG02-97ER41020, DE-FG02-97ER41033, DE-FG02-97ER41041, DE-SC0018060, DE-SC0014445, DE-SC0010254 |
| Oak Ridge National Laboratory | |
| Laboratory Directed Research and Development | |
| Los Alamos National Laboratory | |
| Pacific Northwest National Laboratory | |
| National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center | |
| Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada | SAPIN-2017-00023 |
| Russian Foundation for Basic Research | 15-02-02919 |