The Majorana Demonstrator: Design and Prospects

The continuing search for neutrinoless double beta decay, a rare process that may inform the absolute mass scale of the neutrino, is challenged by a persistent continuum background at energies below 5 MeV. The goal of the Majorana Demonstrator is to show the feasibility of reducing these backgrounds below~1 count/tonne*year in the 4keV ROI around the Q-value at 2039 keV. The demonstrator will field an array of highly purified point contact germanium detectors to demonstrate the effectiveness of a suite of materials assay, construction and analysis techniques. We provide an overview of the experimental requirements, design and expected sensitivity.