AUTHOR=Cappuzzello Francesco , Acosta Luis , Agodi Clementina , Boztosun Ismail , Brischetto Giuseppe A. , Calabrese Salvatore , Calabretta Luciano , Calvo Daniela , Campajola Luigi , Capirossi Vittoria , Carbone Diana , Cavallaro Manuela , Chávez Efrain , Ciraldo Irene , Delaunay Franck , Djapo Haris , Ferraresi Carlo , Finocchiaro Paolo , Fisichella Maria , Gandolfo Elisa M. , Iazzi Felice , Moralles Mauricio , Neri Lorenzo , Oliveira Josè R. B. , Pandola Luciano , Petrascu Horia , Pinna Federico , Russo Antonio D. , Sartirana Diego , Sgouros Onoufrios , Solakci S. O. , Soukeras Vasileios , Spatafora Alessandro , Torresi Domenico , Tudisco Salvatore , Yildirim Aydin TITLE=The NUMEN Project: An Update of the Facility Toward the Future Experimental Campaigns JOURNAL=Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences VOLUME=8 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/astronomy-and-space-sciences/articles/10.3389/fspas.2021.668587 DOI=10.3389/fspas.2021.668587 ISSN=2296-987X ABSTRACT=

The goal of NUMEN project is to access experimentally driven information on Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME) involved in the neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ) by accurate measurements of the cross sections of heavy-ion induced double charge-exchange reactions. In particular, the (18O, 18Ne) and (20Ne, 20O) reactions are adopted as tools for β+β+ and β−β− decays, respectively. The experiments are performed at INFN–Laboratory Nazionali del Sud (LNS) in Catania using the Superconducting Cyclotron to accelerate the beams and the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer to detect the reaction products. The measured cross sections are very low, limiting the present exploration to few selected isotopes of interest in the context of typically low-yield experimental runs. In order to make feasible a systematic study of all the candidate nuclei, a major upgrade of the LNS facility is foreseen to increase the experimental yield by more than two orders of magnitude. To this purpose, frontier technologies are being developed for both the accelerator and the detection systems. An update description of the NUMEN project is presented here, focusing on recent achievements from the R&D activity.