Speaker
Description
The Enriched Xenon Observatory is looking to observe the Standard Model forbidden neutrinoless double beta decay through the decay of 136-Xe. If observed, this would imply that the neutrino is a Majorana particle. One method currently being developed at Carleton University for use by nEXO is barium tagging which once completed, will be able to detect the decay of 136-Xe to 136-Ba++. This would remove any non-ββ backgrounds, which would lead to a significant increase in sensitivity. My work this summer was to restart the operation of Barium tagging which involves using two frequency locked lasers to excite trapped 136-Ba+ ions, and to measure the emitted fluorescence to calculate the population of 136-Ba+ ions that are present within the trap.
