Search for Neutrino-less Double Beta Decay with CANDLES

Abstract

CANDLES is the project to search for neutrino-less double beta decay (0νββ) of 48Ca. The observation of 0νββ will prove existence of a massive Majorana neutrino. For the 0νββ measurement, we need a low background condition because of a low decay rate of 0νββ. Now we installed the CANDLES III system at the Kamioka underground laboratory. The CANDLES III system realizes the low background condition by a characteristic structure and data analyses for background rejection. Here we report performances of the CANDLES III system.