Getting closer to Ba tagging!

Lead by the Texas group, the NEXT collaboration has just published a PRL on the development of a new technique to tag barium atoms in neutrinoless double beta decay.

Being able to identify the Xe daughter nucleus will provide an excellent rejection power of background in neutrinoless double beta decay searches, therefore it could change the game in the next generation experiments.

"The detector relies on single-molecule fluorescence imaging, a tool that biochemists have used with great success. It employs a chemical compound called a fluor that becomes fluorescent only when it traps a targeted ion. Finding a barium ion in coincidence with detection of two electrons of the right energies would be unequivocal proof that neutrinoless double-beta decay had occurred." In the picture, plot number 0 shows a background event, while plot number 1 shows a Ba event.