CRA special seminar (Jacob Daughhetee)

Characterization of the elusive neutrino has been the goal of many experiments over recent years, yet many fundamental properties of this elementary particle remain unknown. As the only neutral Standard Model fermion, it is possible that the neutrino is a Majorana particle, i.e. it’s own anti-particle. This intriguing possibility has important ramifications for physics including the necessity of lepton number violation, an explanation for the small neutrino mass, and a mechanism for producing the observed asymmetry between matter and anti-matter in our Universe. Neutrinoless double-beta decay (0vBB) represents the most sensitive way to probe the Majorana nature of the neutrino. The status of the search for 0vBB with the EXO-200 experiment and the prospects of its planned successor, nEXO, will be presented.