Speaker
Dr
Barbara Wang
(University of California, Berkeley)
Description
The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) will search for the neutrinoless double-beta (0νββ) decay of 130Te using an array of 988 high-resolution TeO2 bolometers. 0νββ decay is a long sought-after second-order weak process in which a nucleus (A,Z) transitions to a nucleus (A,Z+2) through the emission of two electrons. Searching for this decay is currently the only practical method to investigate the Majorana nature of neutrinos. Observation of 0νββ decay would not only establish that neutrinos are Majorana fermions, but also constrain the neutrino-mass scale and hierarchy and demonstrate that total lepton number is not conserved. In CUORE, the signature of the decay is a peak at the double-beta decay Q value (Qββ) of 2528 keV. As 0νββ decay would be a rare process, minimizing the background rate is essential for maximizing the experimental sensitivity. CUORE’s goal background rate at Qββ is 0.01 counts/(keV∙kg∙y), which would allow the experiment to reach a half-life sensitivity of 9.5e25 years (90% C.L.), assuming a live time of 5 years and a FWHM energy resolution of 5 keV. To reach this goal, various background analysis techniques have been developed or implemented, including pulse-shape discrimination, Monte Carlo simulations of background sources, and studies of cosmogenic activation of materials. This talk will provide an overview of these techniques.
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant nos. NSF-PHY-0605119, NSF-PHY-0500337, NSF-PHY-0855314, NSF-PHY-0902171, and NSF-PHY-0969852; the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN); the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; the University of Wisconsin Foundation; Yale University; the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science under Contract nos. DE-AC02-05CH11231 and DE-AC52-07NA27344; and the DOE Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics, under Contract nos. DE-FG02-08ER41551 and DEFG03-00ER41138.
Primary author
Dr
Barbara Wang
(University of California, Berkeley)
