Review Article

Present Status and Future Perspectives of the NEXT Experiment

Table 1

Experimental parameters of the three xenon-based double beta decay experiments: (a) total mass of 136Xe, ; (b) isotope enrichment fraction , meaning the fraction of the mass enriched in the relevant isotope for ; (c) total efficiency, , defined as the percentage of the total mass actually used as source times the signal detection efficiency, which depends on the fraction of signal that escapes detection; (d) energy resolution, , at the value of 136Xe; and (e) background rate, , in the region of interest around expressed in counts/(keV·kg·y) (shortened as ckky) [28].

Experiment (kg) (% FWHM) ( ckky)

EXO-200 110 0.81 52 3.9 1.5
KamLAND-Zen 330 0.91 62 9.9 1.0
NEXT-100 100 0.91 30 0.7 0.5