Speaker
Description
The HOLMES experiment aims to directly measure the $\nu_{e}$ mass using a calorimetric approach. The choice of $^{163}$Ho as source is driven by the very low decay Q-value (~ 2.8 keV), which allows for high sensitivity with low activities (O(10^2)Hz/detector), thus reducing the pile-up probability.
$^{163}$Ho is produced by means of neutron irradiation of a $^{162}$Er$_{2}$O$_{3}$ sample; then, it is separated from the other species generated during the irradiation process. A chemical process removes every species other than Holmium, but this is not sufficient to remove all potential background sources: infact, $^{166m}Ho$ has a beta decay ($\tau$ ~ 1200y) which can induce signal below 5 keV. The contaminants removal is crucial so a dedicated implanting system has been set up. It is designed to achieve an optimal mass separation @163 a.m.u. allowing an efficient implantation of $^{163}$Ho inside the detectors arrays. The implanter is made by a sputter source, an acceleration section and a magnetic dipole followed by a x-y scanning stage and a focusing electrostatic triplet. In this poster the first results on a beam obtained with a preliminary sputter source are presented.
| Student (Ph.D., M.Sc. or B.Sc.) | N |
|---|---|
| Less than 5 years of experience since completion of Ph.D | N |
