Physics Commons^™

An Axion Search With The Majorana Demonstrator, Clinton Gray Wiseman

Theses and Dissertations

The Majorana Demonstrator is an array of P-type point contact (PPC) germanium detectors enclosed in a multi-layered shield at the 4850’ level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility. Its primary goal is to search for the neutrinoless double beta decay of 76Ge. The initial 10 kg-y dataset, taken over a two year period, has energy thresholds as low as 1 keV. This allows concurrent rare event searches for the signatures of dark matter and solar axions in the low energy spectrum. Though the detectors are routinely operated with sub-keV energy thresholds, changing noise conditions in the array have made it …