No Arabic abstract
Cryogenic bolometers, with their excellent energy resolution, flexibility in material, and availability in high purity, are excellent detectors for the search for neutrinoless double beta decay. Kilogram-size single crystals of TeO_2 are utilized in CUORICINO for an array with a total detector mass of 40.7 kg. CUORICINO currently sets the most stringent limit on the halflife of Te-130 of T > 2.4x10^{24} yr (90% C.L.), corresponding to a limit on the effective Majorana neutrino mass in the range of < 0.2-0.9 eV. Based on technology developed for CUORICINO and its predecessors, CUORE is a next-generation experiment designed to probe neutrino mass in the range of 10 - 100 meV. Latest results from CUORICINO and overview of the progress and current status of CUORE are presented.
We report the final result of the CUORICINO experiment. Operated between 2003 and 2008, with a total exposure of 19.75 kg y of 130Te, CUORICINO was able to set a lower bound on the 130Te 0nDBD half-life of 2.8 10^{24} years at 90% C.L. The limit here reported includes the effects of systematic uncertainties that are examined in detail in the paper. The corresponding upper bound on the neutrino Majorana mass is in the range 300--710 meV, depending on the adopted nuclear matrix element evaluation.
We present a study of the sensitivity and discovery potential of CUORE, a bolometric double-beta decay experiment under construction at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy. Two approaches to the computation of experimental sensitivity for various background scenarios are presented, and an extension of the sensitivity formulation to the discovery potential case is also discussed. Assuming a background rate of 10^-2 cts/(keV kg y), we find that, after 5 years of live time, CUORE has a 1 sigma sensitivity to the neutrinoless double-beta decay half-life of T_1/2(1 sigma) = 1.6 times 10^26 y and thus a potential to probe the effective Majorana neutrino mass down to 40-100 meV; the sensitivity at 1.64 sigma, which corresponds to 90% C.L., will be T_1/2(1.64 sigma) = 9.5 times 10^25 y. This range is compared with the claim of observation of neutrinoless double-beta decay in 76Ge and the preferred range of the neutrino mass parameter space from oscillation results.
CUORE is a 741 kg array of TeO2 bolometers for the search of neutrinoless double beta decay of 130Te. The detector is being constructed at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Italy, where it will start taking data in 2015. If the target background of 0.01 counts/keV/kg/y will be reached, in five years of data taking CUORE will have a 1 sigma half life sensitivity of 10E26 y. CUORE-0 is a smaller experiment constructed to test and demonstrate the performances expected for CUORE. The detector is a single tower of 52 CUORE-like bolometers that started taking data in spring 2013. The status and perspectives of CUORE will be discussed, and the first CUORE-0 data will be presented.
The background induced by radioactive impurities of $^{208}rm Tl$ and $^{214}rm Bi$ in the source of the double beta experiment NEMO-3 has been investigated. New methods of data analysis which decrease the background from the above mentioned contamination are identified. The techniques can also be applied to other double beta decay experiments capable of measuring independently the energies of the two electrons.
We report new results from the search for neutrinoless double-beta decay in $^{130}$Te with the CUORE detector. This search benefits from a four-fold increase in exposure, lower trigger thresholds and analysis improvements relative to our previous results. We observe a background of $(1.38pm0.07)cdot10^{-2}$ counts$/($keV$cdot$kg$cdot$yr$)$ in the $0 ubetabeta$ decay region of interest and, with a total exposure of 372.5 kg$cdot$yr, we attain a median exclusion sensitivity of $1.7cdot10^{25}$ yr. We find no evidence for $0 ubetabeta$ decay and set a $90%$ CI Bayesian lower limit of $3.2cdot10^{25}$ yr on the $^{130}$Te half-life for this process. In the hypothesis that $0 ubetabeta$ decay is mediated by light Majorana neutrinos, this results in an upper limit on the effective Majorana mass of 75-350 meV, depending on the nuclear matrix elements used.