https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-021-09403-2
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
Calibration of the Gerda experiment
1
INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso and Gran Sasso Science Institute, Assergi, Italy
2
INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso and Università degli Studi dell’Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy
3
INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, Catania, Italy
4
Institute of Physics, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
5
Institut für Kern- und Teilchenphysik, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
6
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia
7
European Commission, JRC-Geel, Geel, Belgium
8
Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg, Germany
9
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London, UK
10
Dipartimento di Fisica, Università Milano Bicocca, Milan, Italy
11
INFN Milano Bicocca, Milan, Italy
12
Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Milano and INFN Milano, Milan, Italy
13
Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
14
Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, NRC “Kurchatov Institute”, Moscow, Russia
15
National Research Centre “Kurchatov Institute”, Moscow, Russia
16
Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, Munich, Germany
17
Physik Department, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany
18
Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università degli Studi di Padova, Padua, Italy
19
INFN Padova, Padua, Italy
20
Physikalisches Institut, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
21
Physik-Institut, Universität Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
22
NRNU MEPhI, Moscow, Russia
23
Moscow Inst. of Physics and Technology, Moscow, Russia
24
Leibniz-Institut für Kristallzüchtung, Berlin, Germany
25
Dubna State University, Dubna, Russia
Received:
26
March
2021
Accepted:
1
July
2021
Published online:
2
August
2021
The GERmanium Detector Array (Gerda) collaboration searched for neutrinoless double-
decay in 
Ge with an array of about 40 high-purity isotopically-enriched germanium detectors. The experimental signature of the decay is a monoenergetic signal at 
keV in the measured summed energy spectrum of the two emitted electrons. Both the energy reconstruction and resolution of the germanium detectors are crucial to separate a potential signal from various backgrounds, such as neutrino-accompanied double- decays allowed by the Standard Model. The energy resolution and stability were determined and monitored as a function of time using data from regular 
Th calibrations. In this work, we describe the calibration process and associated data analysis of the full Gerda dataset, tailored to preserve the excellent resolution of the individual germanium detectors when combining data over several years.
© The Author(s) 2021
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