GERDA, the GERmanium Detector Array for the search of neutrinoless double beta decay of Ge-76

GERDA will be a new underground experiment at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) with the aim to study neutrinoless double beta (0νββ ) decay of 76Ge at background levels ( 2 ·10 26 y at 90% confidence level ; this corresponds to an effective Majorana mass range from 0.09 to 0.29 eV. The paper will give an overview of the setup, ongoing R&D and the status of the GERDA experiment which has been approved recently by LNGS.