The PandaX-III experiment uses a high pressure xenon gas TPC to search for the NLDBD of $^{136}$Xe. The Microbulk Micromegas will be used for charge amplification and readout in order to record both the energy and track of an event with high energy resolution and spatial resolution. In the first phase of the experiment, we are building a detector which contains 140 kg 90\% $^{136}$Xe enriched gas operated at 10 bar. The detector will be installed in a dry shielding system at CJPL-II. In this paper, we wil report the design of the PandaX-III detector, including the shielding of the experiment and the components of the TPC: the high pressure vessel, the readout plane and the electric field cage.
The PandaX-III (Particle And Astrophysical Xenon Experiment III) experiment will search for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay (NLDBD) of 136Xe at the China Jin-Ping underground Laboratory II (CJPL-II). In the first phase of the experiment, a high pressure gas Time Projection Chamber (TPC) will contain 200 kg, 90% 136Xe enriched gas operated at 10 bar. Microbulk Micromegas, a fine pitch micro-pattern gas detector, will be used for charge readout and enable us to reconstruct tracks of NLDBD events with good energy and spatial resolution. With simulation, we demonstrate excellent background suppress…
The Particle And Astrophysical Xenon Experiment III (PandaX-III) is an experiment to search for the Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay (NLDBD) using 200 kg radio-pure high-pressure gaseous xenon TPC with Micromegas detectors at both ends and cathode in the middle. A small-scale TPC equipped with 7 Microbulk Micromegas detectors is developed as the prototype detector. 128 channels are readout following an X-Y design with strips of 3 mm pitch (64 channels each direction) from one Micromegas module. Highly integrated front-end electronics composed of 4 front-end cards with 1024 readout channels is de…
The PandaX-III experiment plans to search for neutrinoless double beta decay (0$νββ$) of $^{136}$Xe in the China JinPing underground Laboratory (CJPL). The experiment will use a high pressure gaseous Time Projection Chamber (TPC) to register both the energy and the electron track topology of an event. This article is devoted to the software side of the experiment. As software tool we use REST, a framework developed for the reconstruction and simulation of TPC-based detector systems. We study the potential for background reduction by introducing appropiate parameters based on the properties of …
Neutrinoless double beta decay is a hypothetical, very slow nuclear transition in which two neutrons undergo beta decay simultaneously and without the emission of neutrinos. The importance of this process goes beyond its intrinsic interest: an unambiguous observation would establish a Majorana nature for the neutrino and prove the violation of lepton number. NEXT is a new experiment to search for neutrinoless double beta decay using a radiopure high-pressure xenon gas TPC, filled with 100 kg of Xe enriched in Xe-136. NEXT will be the first large high-pressure gas TPC to use electroluminescence…
We report on the custom produced low radiation background stainless steel and the welding rod for the PandaX experiment, one of the deep underground experiments to search for dark matter and neutrinoless double beta decay using xenon. The anthropogenic 60 Co concentration in these samples is at the range of 1 mBq/kg or lower. We also discuss the radioactivity of nuclear-grade stainless steel from TISCO which has a similar background rate. The PandaX-II pressure vessel was thus fabricated using the stainless steel from CISRI and TISCO. Based on the analysis of the radioactivity data, we also ma…
In the search for the neutrinoless double beta decay of $^{136}$Xe, a high pressure xenon time projection chamber (HPXe-TPC) has two advantages over liquid xenon TPCs: a better energy resolution and the access to topological features, which may provide extra discrimination from background events. The PandaX-III experiment has recently proposed a 200 kg HPXe-TPC based on Micromegas readout planes, to be located at the Jinping Underground Laboratory in China. Its detection concept is based on two results obtained within the T-REX project: Micromegas readouts can be built with extremely low level…
The PandaX-III experiment uses high pressure gaseous time projection chamber to search for the neutrinoless double beta decay of $^{136}$Xe. A modular slow control system~(SCS) has been designed to monitor all the critical parameters of the experiment. It ensures the proper operation of the experiment as well as to provide necessary information for data corrections. The main subsystems of the experiment will be constantly monitored by the data collection module of the SCS, which collects data from sensors and sends them to the centralized database. When an alarm message is generated by the ano…
The search for the neutrinoless double beta decay (0$νββ$) is one of the most important quests nowadays in neutrino physics. Among the different techniques used, high pressure xenon (HPXe) gas time projection chambers (TPC) stand out because they allow to image the topology of the 0$νββ$ event (one straggling track ending in two blobs), and use it to discriminate signal from background events. Recent results with microbulk Micromegas in Xe + trimethylamine (TMA) mixtures show high promise in terms of gain, stability of operation, and energy resolution at high pressures (up to 10 bar). The addi…
Searching for the Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay (NLDBD) is now regarded as the topmost promising technique to explore the nature of neutrinos after the discovery of neutrino masses in oscillation experiments. PandaX-III (Particle And Astrophysical Xenon Experiment III) will search for the NLDBD of $^{136}$Xe at the China Jin Ping underground Laboratory (CJPL). In the first phase of the experiment, a high pressure gas Time Projection Chamber (TPC) will contain 200 kg, 90% $^{136}$Xe enriched gas operated at 10 bar. Fine pitch micro-pattern gas detector (Microbulk Micromegas) will be used at bo…
The neutralization of slow positive ions on solid surfaces can lead to the emission of secondary electrons in Auger-type processes. We discuss the possibility of harnessing such mechanisms to the detection of positive ions in gaseous TPCs. Applied to high pressure xenon, the proposed idea may enable reconstructing with high accuracy the topology of candidate neutrinoless double beta decay events of Xe-136 without sacrificing the energy resolution of pure Xe gas. Candidate secondary electron emitters are discussed, as well as the expected efficiencies, challenges and potential pitfalls.
Several efforts are ongoing for the development of spherical gaseous time projection chamber detectors for the observation of rare phenomena such as weakly interacting massive particles or neutrino interactions. The proposed detector, thanks to its simplicity, low energy threshold and energy resolution, could be used to observe the $β\beta0ν$ process i.e. the neutrinoless double beta decay. In this work, a specific setup is presented for the measurement of $β\beta0ν$ on 50~kg of $^{136}$Xe. The different backgrounds are studied, demonstrating the possibility to reach a total background per yea…
We have developed a dedicated front-end-electronics board for a high-pressure xenon gas time projection chamber for a neutrinoless double-beta decay search. The ionization signal is readout by detecting electroluminescence photons with SiPM's. The board readout the signal from 56~SiPM's through the DC-coupling and record the waveforms at 5 MS/s with a wide dynamic range up to 7,000 photons/200 ns. The SiPM bias voltages are provided by the board and can be adjusted for each SiPM. In order to calibrate and monitor the SiPM gain, additional auxiliary ADC measures 1 photon-equivalent dark current…
The PandaX project consists of a series of xenon-based experiments that are used to search for dark matter (DM) particles and to study the fundamental properties of neutrinos. The next DM experiment PandaX-4T will be using 4 ton liquid xenon in the sensitive volume, which is nearly a factor of seven larger than that of the previous experiment PandaX-II. Due to the increasing target mass, the sensitivity of searching for both DM and neutrinoless double-beta decay ($0νββ$) signals in the same detector will be significantly improved. However, the typical energy of interest for $0νββ$ signals is a…
NEXT (Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon TPC) is an experimental program whose goals are to discover neutrinoless double beta decay using $^{136}$Xe in high pressure xenon TPCs with electroluminescent readout. In this paper, results from the NEXT-White detector, which is currently taking data at Laboratorio Subterráneo de Canfranc (LSC) will be reported. The prospects for the NEXT-100 apparatus, scheduled to start operations in 2020, as well as the plans to extend the technology to large and ultra-low background detectors needed to fully explore the inverse hierarchy of neutrino masses, will als…
We propose a novel charge sensing concept for high-pressure Time Projection Chamber (TPC) to search for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay (NLDBD) with ton-scale isotope mass and beyond. A meter-sized plane, tiled with an array of CMOS integrated sensors called Topmetal that directly collect charge without gas avalanche gain, is to be deployed into a high-pressure gaseous TPC with working gases containing suitable NLDBD candidate isotopes such as Xe-136 and Se-82. The Topmetal sensor has an electronic noise <30 e- per pixel, which allows the detector to reach <1% FWHM energy resolution at the NLDB…
A high-pressure xenon gas time projection chamber, with a unique cellular readout structure based on electroluminescence, has been developed for a large-scale neutrinoless double-beta decay search. In order to evaluate the detector performance and validate its design, a 180~L size prototype is being constructed and its commissioning with partial detector has been performed. The obtained energy resolution at 4.0~bar is 1.73 $\pm$ 0.07% (FWHM) at 511 keV. The energy resolution at the $^{136}$Xe neutrinoless double-beta decay Q-value is estimated to be between 0.79 and 1.52% (FWHM) by extrapolati…
This article reviews the application of high pressure gas xenon (HPXe) time projection chambers to neutrinoless double beta decay experiments. First, the fundamentals of the technology and the historical development of the field are discussed. Then, the state of the art is presented, including the prospects for the next generation of experiments with masses in the ton scale.
The PandaX-III experiment will search for neutrinoless double beta decay of $^{136}$Xe with high pressure gaseous time projection chambers at the China Jin-Ping underground Laboratory. The tracking feature of gaseous detectors helps suppress the background level, resulting in the improvement of the detection sensitivity. We study a method based on the convolutional neural networks to discriminate double beta decay signals against the background from high energy gammas generated by $^{214}$Bi and $^{208}$Tl decays based on detailed Monte Carlo simulation. Using the 2-dimensional projections of …
Xenon time projection chambers (TPCs) have become a well-established detection technology for neutrinoless double beta decay searches in $^{136}$Xe. I discuss the motivations for this choice. I describe the status and prospects of both liquid and gaseous xenon TPC projects for double beta decay.
The purpose of the PandaX experiments is to search for the possible events resulted from dark matter particles, neutrinoless double beta decay or other rare processes with xenon detectors. Understanding the energy depositions from backgrounds or calibration sources in these detectors is very important. The program of BambooMC is created to perform the Geant4-based Monte Carlo simulation, providing reference information for the experiments. We introduce the design and features of BambooMC in this report. The running of the program depends on a configuration file, which combines different detect…
We propose a novel detection concept for neutrinoless double-beta decay searches. This concept is based on a Time Projection Chamber (TPC) filled with high-pressure gaseous xenon, and with separated-function capabilities for calorimetry and tracking. Thanks to its excellent energy resolution, together with its powerful background rejection provided by the distinct double-beta decay topological signature, the design discussed in this Letter Of Intent promises to be competitive and possibly out-perform existing proposals for next-generation neutrinoless double-beta decay experiments. We discuss …
Particle tracks and differential energy loss measured in high pressure gaseous detectors can be exploited for event identification in neutrinoless double beta decay~($0νββ$) searches. We develop a new method based on Kalman Filter in a Bayesian formalism (KFB) to reconstruct meandering tracks of MeV-scale electrons. With simulation data, we compare the signal and background discrimination power of the KFB method assuming different detector granularities and energy resolutions. Typical background from $^{232}$Th and $^{238}$U decay chains can be suppressed by another order of magnitude than tha…
We demonstrate that the application of an external magnetic field could lead to an improved background rejection in neutrinoless double-beta (0nbb) decay experiments using a high pressure xenon (HPXe) TPC. HPXe chambers are capable of imaging electron tracks, a feature that enhances the separation between signal events (the two electrons emitted in the 0nbb decay of 136Xe) and background events, arising chiefly from single electrons of kinetic energy compatible with the end-point of the 0nbb decay (Qbb ). Applying an external magnetic field of sufficiently high intensity (in the range of 0.5-1…
PandaX-4T is a ton-scale dark matter direct detection experiment using a dual-phase TPC technique at the China Jinping Underground Laboratory. Various ultra-low background technologies have been developed and applied to material screening for PandaX-4T, including HPGe gamma spectroscopy, ICP-MS, NAA, radon emanation measurement system, krypton assay station, and alpha detection system. Low background materials were selected to assemble the detector. Surface treatment procedures were investigated to further suppress radioactive background. Combining measured results and Monte Carlo simulation, …
The dual-phase xenon time projection chamber (TPC) is one of the most sensitive detector technology for dark matter direct search, where the energy deposition of incoming particle can be converted into photons and electrons through xenon excitation and ionization. The detector response to signal energy deposition varies significantly with the electric field in liquid xenon. We study the detector's light yield and its dependence on the electric field in the PandaX-II dual-phase detector containing 580~kg liquid xenon in the sensitive volume. From our measurements, the light yield at electric fi…
The aim of the presented work was to develop further techniques based on a Micromegas-TPC, in order to reach a high gas gain with good energy resolution, and to search for gas mixtures suitable for rare event detection. This paper focuses on xenon, which is convenient for the search of neutrinoless double beta decay in 136 Xe. Conversely, a small admixture of xenon to CF 4 can reduce attachment in the latter. This gas mixture would be suitable for dark matter searches and the study of solar and reactor neutrinos. Various configurations of the Micromegas plane were investigated and are describe…
The NEXT experiment aims to observe the neutrinoless double beta decay of Xe-136 in a high-pressure xenon gas TPC using electroluminescence to amplify the signal from ionization. One of the main advantages of this technology is the possibility to use the topology of events with energies close to Qbb as an extra tool to reject background. In these proceedings we show with data from prototypes that an extra background rejection factor of 24.3 +- 1.4 (stat.)% can be achieved, while maintaining an efficiency of 66.7 +- 1.% for signal events. The performance expected in NEW, the next stage of the e…
AXEL is a high pressure xenon gas TPC detector being developed for neutrinoless double-beta decay search. We use the proportional scintillation mode with a new electroluminescence light detection system to achieve high energy resolution in a large detector. The detector also has tracking capabilities, which enable significant background rejection. To demonstrate our detection technique, we constructed a 10L prototype detector filled with up to 10bar xenon gas. The FWHM energy resolution obtained by the prototype detector is 4.0 $\pm$ 0.30 $\%$ at 122 keV, which corresponds to 0.9 ~ 2.0 % when …
We present a new neutrinoless double beta decay concept: the high pressure selenium hexafluoride gas time projection chamber. Combining techniques pioneered in high pressure xenon gas such as topological discrimination, with the high Q-value afforded by double beta decay isotope $^{82}$Se, a promising new detection technique is outlined. Lack of free electrons in SeF$_6$ mandates the use of an ion TPC. The microphysics of ion production and drift, which have many nuances, are explored. Background estimates are produced suggesting such a detector may achieve background indices of better than 1 …
The observation of the neutrinoless double beta decay may provide essential information on the nature of neutrinos. Among the current experimental approaches, a high pressure gaseous TPC is an attractive option for the search of double beta decay due to its good energy resolution and the detailed topological information of each event. We present in this talk a detailed study of the ionization topology of the 136Xe double beta decay events in a High Pressure Xenon TPC, as well as that of the typical competing backgrounds. We define some observables based on graph theory concepts to develop auto…
The measurement of neutrino magnetic moment larger than $10^{-19}μ_B$ would be a clear signature of physics beyond the standard model other than the existence of massive Dirac neutrinos. The use of a spherical proportional counter detector filled with gas at 40 bar located near a nuclear reactor would be a simple way to perform such a measurement exploiting the developments made on such a technology for the search of dark matter and neutrinoless double beta decay. Different targets can be used just by replacing the gas: xenon, CF$_4$ and argon were compared and the sensitivity in one year of d…
A high pressure xenon gas time projection chamber with electroluminescent amplification (EL HPGXe TPC) searching for the neutrinoless double beta ($0νββ$) decay offers: excellent energy resolution ($0.5-0.7\%$ FWHM at the $Q_{ββ}$), by amplifying the ionization signal with electroluminescent light, and tracking capabilities, as demonstrated by the NEXT collaboration using two kg-scale prototypes. The NEXT collaboration is building an EL HPGXe TPC capable of holding 100 kg (NEXT-100) of xenon isotopically enriched in ${{}^{136}\rm Xe}$. The installation and commissioning of the NEXT-100 detecto…
The Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon TPC (NEXT) seeks to discover the neutrinoless double beta ($ββ0ν$) decay of $^{136}$Xe using a high-pressure xenon gas time projection chamber with electroluminescent amplification. The observation of $ββ0ν$ decay would prove that neutrinos are Majorana particles and that lepton number is not conserved. The NEXT detector concept offers several features of great value for $ββ0ν$-decay searches, including excellent energy resolution, tracking for the active suppression of backgrounds and scalability to large source masses. The initial phase of the NEXT projec…
The NEXT-100 detector will search for the neutrinoless double beta decay of $^{136}$Xe using an electroluminescent high-pressure xenon gas TPC filled with 100 kg of enriched Xe. An observation of this hypothetical process would establish a Majorana nature for the neutrino and prove the violation of lepton number. A scaled-down prototype, NEXT-DEMO, has been built to demonstrate the feasibility of the technology. NEXT-DEMO includes an energy plane made of PMTs and a tracking plane made of SiPMs. X-ray energy depositions, produced by the de-excitation of xenon atoms after their interaction with …
High pressure gas detectors offer advantages for the detection of rare events, where background reduction is crucial. For the neutrinoless double beta decay of 136Xe a high pressure xenon gas Time Projection Chamber (TPC) combines a good energy resolution and a detailed topological information of each event. The ionization topology of the double beta decay event of 136Xe in gaseous xenon has a characteristic shape defined by the two straggling electron tracks ending up in two higher ionization charge density blobs. With a properly pixelized readout, this topological information is invaluable t…
NEXT (Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon TPC) is a neutrinoless double-beta (ββ0ν) decay experiment that will operate at the Canfranc Underground Laboratory (LSC). It is an electroluminescent high-pressure gaseous xenon Time Projection Chamber (TPC) with separate read-out planes for calorimetry and tracking. Energy resolution and background suppression are the two key features of any neutrinoless double beta decay experiment. NEXT has both good energy resolution (<1% FWHM) at the Q value of $^{136} $Xe and an extra handle for background identification provided by track reconstruction. With the b…
In this work we present a systematic study of Micromegas detectors in high pressure gaseous Xenon using trimethylamine (TMA) as quencher gas. Gas gains and energy resolutions for 22.1 keV X-rays are measured for pressures between 1 and 10 bar and various relative concentrations of TMA from 0.3 % to 15 %. We observe stable operation at all pressures, and a strongly enhanced gas gain, suggestive of Penning-like energy-transfer processes. The effect is present at all pressures and it is strongest at TMA concentrations ranging from 1.5 % to 3 %. Operating in this concentration range, the maximum g…
AXEL is a high-pressure xenon gas time projection chamber for neutrinoless double-beta decay (0n2b) search. The AXEL has a unique readout system called ELCC which has a cellular structure and photosensors to detect electroluminescence light produced by ionization electrons. We demonstrated the performance of the ELCC with a small prototype detector (AXEL-HP10L). The obtained energy resolution corresponds to 0.82 -- 1.74% (FWHM) at the 0n2b Q-value. We are constructing a new prototype (AXEL-HP180L) in order to study the energy resolution at the Q-value of 0n2b with a new design of ELCC with uni…
The NEXT experiment aims to observe the neutrinoless double beta decay of xenon in a high-pressure Xe136 gas TPC using electroluminescence (EL) to amplify the signal from ionization. One of the main advantages of this technology is the possibility to reconstruct the topology of events with energies close to Qbb. This paper presents the first demonstration that the topology provides extra handles to reject background events using data obtained with the NEXT-DEMO prototype. Single electrons resulting from the interactions of Na22 1275 keV gammas and electron-positron pairs produced by conversion…
The gaseous Xenon(Xe) time projection chamber (TPC) is an attractive detector technique for neutrinoless double beta decay and WIMP dark matter searches. While it is less dense compared to Liquid Xe detectors, it has intrinsic advantages in tracking capability and better energy resolution. The performance of gaseous Xe can be further improved by molecular additives such as trimethylamine(TMA), which is expected to (1) cool down the ionization electrons, (2) convert Xe excitation energy to TMA ionizations through Penning transfer, and (3) produce scintillation and electroluminescence light in a…
The Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon TPC (NEXT) searches for the neutrinoless double-beta decay of Xe-136 using high-pressure xenon gas TPCs with electroluminescent amplification. A scaled-up version of this technology with about 1 tonne of enriched xenon could reach in less than 5 years of operation a sensitivity to the half-life of neutrinoless double-beta decay decay better than 1E27 years, improving the current limits by at least one order of magnitude. This prediction is based on a well-understood background model dominated by radiogenic sources. The detector concept presented here repres…
The South Pole Telescope (SPT) has probed an expanded angular range of the CMB temperature power spectrum. Their recent analysis of the latest cosmological data prefers nonzero neutrino masses, mnu = 0.32+-0.11 eV. This result, if confirmed by the upcoming Planck data, has deep implications on the discovery of the nature of neutrinos. In particular, the values of the effective neutrino mass involved in neutrinoless double beta decay (bb0nu) are severely constrained for both the direct and inverse hierarchy, making a discovery much more likely. In this paper, we focus in xenon-based bb0nu exper…
Large detectors employing xenon are a leading technology in existing and planned searches for new physics, including searches for neutrinoless double beta decay ($0νββ$) and dark matter. While upcoming detectors will employ target masses of a ton or more, further extending gas or liquid phase Xe detectors to the kton scale would enable extremely sensitive next-generation searches for rare phenomena. The key challenge to extending this technology to detectors well beyond the ton scale is the acquisition of the Xe itself. We describe the motivation for extending Xe time projection chambers (TPCs…
Liquid Xe TPCs are among the most popular choices for double beta decay and WIMP dark matter searches. Gaseous Xe has intrinsic advantages when compared to Liquid Xe, specifically, tracking capability and better energy resolution for double beta decay searches. The performance of gaseous Xe can be further improved by molecular additives such as trimethylamine(TMA), which are expected to (1) cool down the ionization electrons, (2) convert Xe excitation energy to TMA ionizations through Penning transfer, and (3) produce scintillation and electroluminescence light in a more easily detectable wave…
NEXT (Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon TPC) is a neutrinoless double beta decay experiment located at the Laboratorio Subterráneo de Canfranc (LSC, Spain). Its aim is to demonstrate that the neutrino is a Majorana particle by detecting the neutrinoless double beta decay process in xenon gas enriched in the $^{136}$Xe isotope. The detector technology used in NEXT is that of radiopure high pressure time projection chambers with electroluminescence amplification, which provide excellent energy resolution better than 1$\%$ FWHM in the energy region of interest, topological reconstruction that allo…
NEXT (Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon TPC) is a neutrinoless double-beta (ββ0ν) decay experiment at the Canfranc Underground Laboratory (LSC). It seeks to detect the (ββ0ν) decay of Xe-136 using a high pressure xenon gas TPC with electroluminescent (EL) amplification. The NEXT-White (NEW) detector, with an active xenon mass of about 10 kg at 15 bar, is the first NEXT prototype installed at LSC. It implements the NEXT detector concept tested in smaller prototypes using the same radiopure sensors and materials that will be used in the future NEXT-100, serving as a benchmark for technical soluti…
The NEXT experiment aims to observe the neutrinoless double beta decay of $^{136}$Xe in a high pressure gas TPC using electroluminescence (EL) to amplify the signal from ionization. Understanding the response of the detector is imperative in achieving a consistent and well understood energy measurement. The abundance of xenon k-shell x-ray emission during data taking has been identified as a multitool for the characterisation of the fundamental parameters of the gas as well as the equalisation of the response of the detector. The NEXT-DEMO prototype is a ~1.5 kg volume TPC filled with natural …
NEXT (Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon TPC) aims to observe the neutrinoless double beta decay of \ensuremath{{}^{136}\rm Xe} in a high-pressure gas xenon Time Projection Chamber using electroluminescence to amplify the signal from ionization. The two main advantages of this technology are a high energy resolution and the possibility of reconstructing electron tracks. NEXT-100 is an electroluminescent, asymmetric TPC which will host 100 kg of the \ensuremath{{}^{136}\rm Xe} isotope at 15 bar of pressure. On one side, a sparse array of photomultipliers records both the primary scintillation sig…
Double beta $ββ$ decay experiments are one of the most active research topics in Neutrino Physics. The measurement of the neutrinoless mode $0νββ$ could give unique information on the neutrino mass scale and nature. The current generation of experiments aims at detector target masses at the 100 kg scale, while the next generation will need to go to the ton scale in order to completely explore the inverse hierarchy models of neutrino mass. Very good energy resolutions and ultra-low background levels are the two main experimental requirements for a successful experiment. The topological informat…
In this paper we describe an innovative type of Time Projection Chamber (TPC), which uses high-pressure xenon gas (HPXe) and electroluminescence amplification of the ionization charge as the basis of an apparatus capable of fully reconstructing the energy and topological signature of rare events. We will discuss a specific design of such HPXe TPC, the NEXT-100 detector, that will search for neutrinoless double beta decay events using 100-150 kg of xenon enriched in the isotope Xe-136. NEXT-100 is currently under construction, after completion of an accelerated and very successful R&D period. I…
