{
  "abstract": "High-purity germanium detectors are widely used in rare-event searches due to their excellent energy resolution and extremely high intrinsic (radio)purity. In experiments searching for neutrinoless double beta decay in $$^{76}$$ 76 Ge such as Legend , pulse shape discrimination is required to suppress multi-site $$\\gamma $$ γ events. In this work, we investigate whether pulse shape discrimination classifiers trained exclusively on $$\\gamma $$ γ ray data can be used to identify and reject $$\\alpha $$ α events, without the need for dedicated $$\\alpha $$ α training. In detectors such as Legend , the total number of registered $$\\alpha $$ α events over the experiment lifetime is expected to be insufficient to train dedicated classifiers, while still contributing to the background. Two approaches based on machine learning are studied: a multilayer perceptron and a projective likelihood classifier. The p+ surface of a point-contact semi-planar germanium detector was exposed to $$^{209}$$ 209 Po and $$^{210}$$ 210 Po sources deposited on a thin gold foil. Two measurement campaigns were performed, yielding $$1.36\\times 10^{5}$$ 1.36 × 10 5 and $$1.87\\times 10^{6}$$ 1.87 × 10 6 $$\\alpha $$ α events, respectively. Both classification methods achieve efficient separation of single-site and multi-site $$\\gamma $$ γ events while strongly reducing the $$\\alpha $$ α component. The multilayer perceptron provides the best overall performance, with a signal-like event survival greater than 80%, a background-like event survival below 20%, and an $$\\alpha $$ α -rejection factor exceeding $$2.71\\times 10^{4}$$ 2.71 × 10 4 . These results demonstrate that robust pulse shape discrimination for high-purity germanium detectors can be achieved using training information derived solely from $$\\gamma $$ γ events, providing a promising strategy for next-generation neutrinoless double beta decay searches.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Jagiellonian University",
    "INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso",
    "Henryk Niewodniczański Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 5,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "A. Biondi",
      "orcid": "0009-0009-9199-7814"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "K. Szczepaniec",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-3229-777X"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        2
      ],
      "name": "T. Mróz",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-5304-5531"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "M. Misiaszek",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-5726-9666"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "G. Zuzel",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-5898-2658"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/bak7r9r8thk5v.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1140/epjc/s10052-026-16463-9",
  "fulltext_url": "https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-026-16463-9",
  "id": "bak7r9r8thk5v",
  "issns": [
    "1434-6044",
    "1434-6052"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjc/s10052-026-16463-9",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "lcc",
      "QB460-466"
    ],
    [
      "lcc",
      "QC770-798"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "3106|Neutrino Physics Research"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7223347816",
  "pdf_url": "https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1140/epjc/s10052-026-16463-9.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-23",
  "publisher": "Springer Science and Business Media LLC",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/bak7r9r8thk5v.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:18:04Z",
      "native_id": "10.1140/epjc/s10052-026-16463-9",
      "source": "crossref",
      "url": "https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjc/s10052-026-16463-9"
    },
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T13:46:20Z",
      "native_id": "3a98e53aa33f4f3c951960d64d58eb33",
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      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-026-16463-9"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "openalex:3106|Neutrino Physics Research",
      "subfield": "high-energy"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Pulse shape discrimination for event rejection in BEGe-type high-purity germanium detectors",
  "title_text": "Pulse shape discrimination for event rejection in BEGe-type high-purity germanium detectors",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T13:46:20Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/bak7r9r8thk5v",
  "venue": "The European Physical Journal C",
  "versions": []
}