Speaker
Dr
Thomas ODonnell
(UC Berkeley / LBNL)
Description
Neutrinoless double beta decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$) is theoretically
motivated but has never been observed. It's discovery would
demonstrate lepton number violation, establish neutrinos are Majorana
fermions and possibly constrain the absolute neutrino-mass scale.
The last decade has seen tremendous progress in the search for this
decay but to push the frontier forward improved detectors --- with
excellent energy resolution, extremely low background, and ton-yr
exposures --- are required.
CUORE is meeting this challenge with an array of 988
TeO$_{2}$-bolometers. With an active mass of 741~kg, it will be by far
the largest ultra-low-temperature bolometer array ever operated.
I will describe the bolometer detectors of CUORE and discuss what has
been learned from an ongoing prototype experiment, CUORE0. The data
demonstates the bolometer performance in terms of energy-resolution
and intrinsic background meet the requirements needed for CUORE to
achieve it's target 90\%C.L lower-limt sensitivity of
\mbox{$T_{1/2}^{0\nu}$ = $9.5\times 10^{25}$~yr.}
Collaboration
CUORE
Primary authors
Speaker CUORE
(LNGS)
Dr
Thomas ODonnell
(UC Berkeley / LBNL)
