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The CUORE experiment

Learn about the CUORE experiment focusing on neutrinoless double beta decay detection using bolometric techniques with TeO2 crystals, advancements in prototypes, sensitivity, and mass measurements.

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The CUORE experiment

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  1. The CUORE experiment Thomas Bloxham Lawrence Berkeley National Lab PHENO 2011 May 9th 2011

  2. Contents • Neutrinoless Double  decay • Sensitivity • CUORE and it’s prototypes • Progress

  3. Neutrinoless Double  Decay Intermediate virtual A,Z+1 nucleus Final A,Z+2 nucleus A,Z nucleus e e e anti-neutrino e anti-neutrino neutrino

  4. Neutrinoless Double  Decay • There is a great deal of experimental effort ongoing in an attempt to observe this decay in a variety of elements (130Te in CUORE,116Cd in COBRA, 76Ge in Majorana and GERDA, 136Xe in KamLAND-xen) • The primary interest however is determining whether the character of the neutrino is Dirac or Majorana. • However, it is possible to gain more information from the rate of this decay if observed, in that the rate of this decay is proportional to the mass of the neutrino.

  5. Neutrino Mass • The difficulty in doing this however is that while the occurrence of the decay is an immediate indicator of Majorana character, the conversion from half life to mass requires this equation • Here M0v is an unknown matrix element relating rate and mass. Current determinations from theory are rather varied, and form a major part of all of the errors quoted on mass limits provided by current experiments.

  6. Detector Mass(kg) Measuring Time (yrs) Background (cts/(keV yr kg) Detector Efficiency Isotopic Abundance Atomic Mass Number Resolution(keV) Sensitivity

  7. Candidate Nuclei • 130Te has a Q value of approximately 2528 keV, and a natural abundance of 34.2% • Its matrix elements compare favorably with all other candidates • Its Q value is above most background gamma lines other than 208Tl

  8. The CUORE experiment • The CUORE experiment is a Bolometric search for neutrinoless double  decay using 988 TeO2 crystals arranged in 19 towers. • With currently expected backgrounds of 10-2 ~ 10-3 counts/kg keV year in the region of interest the full scale experiment should be able to produce a competitive mass limit for the neutrino within the first year. • A variety of prototypes have already been operated and best limits for many decays have already been set using Bolometric techniques in these detectors.

  9. Bolometric Techniques Detector Working Temperature = 10 mK Heat capacity = 2*10-9 J/K (750 g detector at 10 mK)

  10. Bolometric Advantages • Bolometric techniques for neutrinoless double beta decay lend themselves well to source as detector techniques, maximizing efficiency • They have an intrinsically good resolution which improves further as temperature falls • They function well as large detectors, allowing a single channel to instrument a large amount of mass. This limits the amount of instrumentation required in a low counting rate experiment. • They can be made from a wide variety of materials • They are true calorimeters, and respond identically to energy deposited regardless of it’s source particle

  11. R&D CUORE CUORICINO The LNGS location 1.4 km rock overburden equivalent to 3100 ± 200 meters of water Neutron Flux = ~4*10-6 neutrons/(cm2 s) Muon Flux = (2.58±0.3)*10-8 muons/(cm2 s)

  12. CUORICINO BKG@ROI = 0.169 ± 0.005 cts / (keV kg yr) 19.75 kg (130Te) yrs of exposure 2ν mode: T1/2(2ν) ~= 0.9 ± 0.15 ⋅ 1021 yr A. S. Barabash, Czech. J. Phys. 52, 567-573 (2002) 0ν mode: T1/2(0ν) > 2.8⋅ 1024 yr @ 90% C.L.

  13. CUORE • The lessons learned from CUORICINO have been used to produce a design for CUORE which should hugely improve on the capacity of the prototype. • The improvements in CUORE are both in terms of sheer size, and in terms of the background goals for the experiment. To succeed CUORE must lower background by a factor of at least 20 over CUORICINO • CUORE’s mass provides benefits in more ways than simply increasing the rate of increase in detector exposure. Anti-coincidence vetoing with CUORE will be more effective at removing background, and bolometers at the core of the detector should be shielded from contaminants on the cryostat wall.

  14. CUORE Improvements

  15. CUORE Improvements

  16. preliminary Timeline and mass progression

  17. CCVR tests preliminary preliminary Both contaminant levels below contracted requirements • CCVR tests each tested a small sample ofrecently produced bolometer crystals • They used the same electronics and mounting procedure as CUORE will use

  18. Conclusions • The CUORE experiment is at the forefront of the next generation of detectors designed to detect neutrinoless double beta decay. • It is uniquely placed to exploit a detection method in bolometry which is the only experimental technique with a good enough resolution to effectively remove neutrino accompanied double beta decay as a background • The natural abundance of 130Te also frees the experiment from having to enrich vast amounts of material, allowing it to be the detector observing the largest mass of neutrinoless double beta decay isotopes. • Construction and testing is proceeding apace, and data taking with CUORE-0, which will begin this year, will in and of itself serve as not only a proof of concept but as the most sensitive test to date of the existence of neutrinoless double beta decay

  19. Thanks for listening

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