A. Nucciotti - HOLMES - The Electron Capture Decay of 163Ho to Measure the Electron Neutrino Mass with sub-eV sensitivity

by Angelo Enrico Lodovico Nucciotti (INFN Milano Bicocca)

Tuesday 13 May 2014, 14:30 → 16:00 Europe/Rome

Pontecorvo room (LNGS)

The European Research Council has recently funded HOLMES, a new experiment to directly measure the neutrino mass. HOLMES will perform a calorimetric measurement of the energy released in the decay of ¹⁶³Ho. The calorimetric measurement eliminates systematic uncertainties arising from the use of external beta sources, as in experiments with beta spectrometers. This measurement was proposed in 1982 by A. De Rujula and M. Lusignoli, but only recently the detector technological progress allowed to design a sensitive experiment. HOLMES will deploy a large array of low temperature microcalorimeters with implanted ¹⁶³Ho nuclei. The resulting mass sensitivity will be as low as 0.4eV. HOLMES will be an important step forward in the direct neutrino mass measurement with a calorimetric approach as an alternative to spectrometry. It will also establish the potential of this approach to extend the sensitivity down to 0.1eV. The talk will outline the project with its technical challenges and perspectives.
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Angelo Nucciotti
Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italia
INFN Sezione di Milano Bicocca, Milano, Italia

Poster LNGS_Seminar2014Nucciotti.pdf

Slides Slides_Nucciotti.pdf