Mitigation of 42 Ar/ 42 K background for the GERDA Phase II experiment

Abstract

Background coming from the 42Ar decay chain is considered to be one of the most relevant for the Gerda experiment, which searches for the neutrinoless double beta decay of 76Ge. The sensitivity strongly relies on the absence of background around the Q-value of the decay. Background coming from 42K, a progeny of 42Ar, can contribute to that background via electrons from the continuous spectrum with an endpoint at 3.5 MeV. Research and development on the suppression methods targeting this source of background were performed at the low-background test facility LArGe. It was demonstrated that by reducing 42K ion collection on the surfaces of the broad energy germanium detectors in combination with pulse shape discrimination techniques and an argon scintillation veto, it is possible to suppress 42K background by three orders of magnitude. This is sufficient for Phase II of the Gerda experiment.