Eur. Phys. J. C (2013) 73: 2330
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-013-2330-0

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

The Gerda experiment for the search of 0νββ decay in ⁷⁶Ge

¹ INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, LNGS, Assergi, Italy
² Institute of Physics, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland
³ Institut für Kern- und Teilchenphysik, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
⁴ Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia
⁵ Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements, Geel, Belgium
⁶ Max Planck Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg, Germany
⁷ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università Milano Bicocca, Milano, Italy
⁸ INFN Milano Bicocca, Milano, Italy
⁹ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Milano e INFN Milano, Milano, Italy
¹⁰ Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
¹¹ Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Moscow, Russia
¹² National Research Centre “Kurchatov Institute”, Moscow, Russia
¹³ Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, München, Germany
¹⁴ Physik Department and Excellence Cluster Universe, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany
¹⁵ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia dell‘Università di Padova, Padova, Italy
¹⁶ INFN Padova, Padova, Italy
¹⁷ Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China
¹⁸ Physikalisches Institut, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
¹⁹ Physik Institut der Universität Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
²⁰ CEGEP St-Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada
²¹ Laurentian University, Sudbury, Canada
²² Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA
²³ Department of Neurosciences and Imaging, University “G. d’Annunzio” di Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy
²⁴ Nat. Physical Laboratory, Teddigton, UK
²⁵ Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Moscow, Russia
²⁶ II. Physikalisches Institut, U. Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
²⁷ Department Physik, U. Siegen, Siegen, Germany
²⁸ Kavli IPMU, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
²⁹ TÜV-SÜD, München, Germany
³⁰ Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany
³¹ Robert Bosch GmbH, Reutlingen, Germany
³² Photon-Science Detector Group, DESY, Hamburg, Germany
³³ Dipartimento di Fisica, University of L’Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy

^* e-mail: grabmayr@uni-tuebingen.de

Received: 23 November 2012
Revised: 9 February 2013
Published online: 1 March 2013

Abstract

The Gerda collaboration is performing a search for neutrinoless double beta decay of ⁷⁶Ge with the eponymous detector. The experiment has been installed and commissioned at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso and has started operation in November 2011. The design, construction and first operational results are described, along with detailed information from the R&D phase.