Status of the GERDA experiment aimed to search for neutrinoless double beta decay of 76Ge (0812.4194v1)

Abstract: The progress in the development of the new international Gerda (GErmanium Detector Array) experiment is presented. Main purpose of the experiment is to search for the neutrinoless double beta decay of 76Ge. The experimental set up is under construction in the underground laboratory of LNGS. Gerda will operate with bare germanium semiconductor detectors (enriched in 76Ge) situated in liquid argon. In the Phase I the existing enriched detectors from the previous Heidelberg-Moscow and IGEX experiments are employed, in the Phase II the new segmented detectors made from recently produced enriched material will be added. Novel concepts for background suppression including detector segmentation and anti-coincidence with LAr scintillation are developed.