Gamma Tagging in <sup>7</sup>Be Decay Measurements Using Geant-4

ORAL

Abstract

The BeEST experiment uses superconducting tunnel junctions (STJs) to precisely measure the nuclear recoil from the electron capture decay of 7Be to search for beyond standard model physics (BSM) in the neutrino sector. Recently, the first ever coincidence measurement between the nuclear recoil and the 478 keV γ-ray produced in 10% of decays to isolate the nuclear recoil spectrum from that decay branch. Improving γ tagging in future phases of the experiment will decrease the standard model-allowed background and improve the experimental sensitivity to BSM physics. This talk compares Geant-4 simulation results to our previous "nuclear recoil-gamma coincidence" measurement and presents strategies to improve future analysis and the experimental setup of the BeEST experiment.

*The BeEST experiment is funded in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (10.37807/GBMF11571), the DOE-SC Office of Nuclear Physics under Award Numbers DE-SC0021245 and DE-FG02-93ER40789, and the LLNL Laboratory Directed Research and Development program through Grants No. 19-FS-027 and No. 20-LW-006. TRIUMF receives federal funding via a contribution agreement with the National Research Council of Canada. The theoretical work was performed as part of the European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research (EMPIR) Projects No. 17FUN02 MetroMMC and No. 20FUN09 PrimA-LTD. This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC52- 07NA27344.

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Presenters

  • Calvin Hinkle

    • Colorado School of Mines

Authors

  • Calvin Hinkle

    • Colorado School of Mines