The President's FY2003 National Science Foundation budget request to Congress called for an NSF-sponsored conference to address underground science (particularly neutrino physics). One motivation is the effort by the science community to create a deep National Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (NUSEL). This working group will organize the meeting's parallel sessions on future double beta decay experiments and related developments in ultra-low-level counting facilities.

Goals of the Parallel Sessions on Double Beta Decay and Low-Level Counting

Neutrinoless double beta decay is a direct test of lepton number violation and, in most scenarios, probes the overall scale of neutrino mass. Recent measurements of solar and atmospheric neutrino oscillations, which depend on the differences in the squares of the masses, suggest that neutrinoless double beta decay might be observable in a new generation of experiments approximately a factor of 100 larger than those currently mounted. Such experiments will provide an important window on beyond-the- standard-model physics that includes neutrino mass, the Majorana/Dirac character of the neutrino, other mechanisms for lepton number violation, and CP violation among neutrinos.

The double beta decay parallel sessions will focus on the physics and astrophysics motivations for new experiments. The sessions will include theory issues and presentations from proponents of major experiments now under development, including their background requirements and infrastructure needs. Because materials purity is so essential to such experiments, low-level counting facilities will be included in these sessions.

Participation and Contributed Talks

Information on the meeting, including registration and housing, can be found at the web site, http://www.physics.umd.edu/ness02/.

If you would like to present a talk in one of the double beta decay working groups, please submit a contributed talk abstract. We do not yet know how much time we will be allocated, but will do our best to schedule as many talks as is feasible. Priority will be given to experimental talks on future projects in which depth and other background requirements are discussed.

We have compiled a list of community members we believe are interested in double beta decay and low-level counting. Please let the working group organizers know of other individuals that should be added to this list. We understand that strong community participation in NESS02 is important to the prospects for creating NUSEL.

Some support is available for the local expenses of students and other young researchers. Please notify the Working Group Leaders of young people that potentially require such support.