The ASPECT-BET project, or An sdd-SPECTrometer for BETa decay studies, aims to develop a novel technique for the precise measurement of forbidden beta spectra in the 10 keV-1 MeV range. This technique employs a Silicon Drift Detector (SDD) as the main spectrometer with the option of a veto system to reject events exhibiting only partial energy deposition in the SDD. A precise understanding of the spectrometer's response to electrons is crucial for accurately reconstructing the theoretical shape of the beta spectrum.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is a detector array comprised by 988 5 cm×5 cm×5 cm TeO_{2} crystals held below 20 mK, primarily searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay in ^{130}Te. Unprecedented in size among cryogenic calorimetric experiments, CUORE provides a promising setting for the study of exotic throughgoing particles. Using the first tonne year of CUORE's exposure, we perform a search for hypothesized fractionally charged particles (FCPs), which are well-motivated by various standard model extensions and would have suppressed interactions with matter.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe report on the results obtained with the global CUPID-0 background model, which combines the data collected in the two measurement campaigns for a total exposure of 8.82 kg×yr of ^{82}Se. We identify with improved precision the background sources within the 3 MeV energy region, where neutrinoless double β decay of ^{82}Se and ^{100}Mo is expected, making more solid the foundations for the background budget of the next-generation CUPID experiment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNext-generation experiments searching for rare events must satisfy increasingly stringent requirements on the bulk and surface radioactive contamination of their active and structural materials. The measurement of surface contamination is particularly challenging, as no existing technology is capable of separately measuring parts of the Th and U decay chains that are commonly found to be out of secular equilibrium. We will present the results obtained with a detector prototype consisting of 8 silicon wafers of 150 mm diameter instrumented as bolometers and operated in a low-background dilution refrigerator at the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory of INFN, Italy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso of INFN in Italy is an experiment searching for neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay. Its main goal is to investigate this decay in ^{130}Te, but its ton-scale mass and low background make CUORE sensitive to other rare processes as well. In this Letter, we present our first results on the search for 0νββ decay of ^{128}Te, the Te isotope with the second highest natural isotopic abundance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhys Rev Lett
September 2022
CUPID-0, an array of Zn^{82}Se cryogenic calorimeters, was the first medium-scale demonstrator of the scintillating bolometers' technology. The first project phase (March 2017-December 2018) allowed the most stringent limit on the neutrinoless double beta decay half-life of the isotope of interest, ^{82}Se, to be set. After a six month long detector upgrade, CUPID-0 began its second and last phase (June 2019-February 2020).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur Phys J C Part Fields
July 2022
DUNE is a dual-site experiment for long-baseline neutrino oscillation studies, neutrino astrophysics and nucleon decay searches. ProtoDUNE Dual Phase (DP) is a 6 6 6 m liquid argon time-projection-chamber (LArTPC) that recorded cosmic-muon data at the CERN Neutrino Platform in 2019-2020 as a prototype of the DUNE Far Detector. Charged particles propagating through the LArTPC produce ionization and scintillation light.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur Phys J C Part Fields
August 2021
Localization and modeling of radioactive contaminations is a challenge that ultra-low background experiments are constantly facing. These are fundamental steps both to extract scientific results and to further reduce the background of the detectors. Here we present an innovative technique based on the analysis of delayed coincidences in Th and U decay chains, developed to investigate the contaminations of the ZnSe crystals in the CUPID-0 experiment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur Phys J C Part Fields
April 2021
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) will be a powerful tool for a variety of physics topics. The high-intensity proton beams provide a large neutrino flux, sampled by a near detector system consisting of a combination of capable precision detectors, and by the massive far detector system located deep underground. This configuration sets up DUNE as a machine for discovery, as it enables opportunities not only to perform precision neutrino measurements that may uncover deviations from the present three-flavor mixing paradigm, but also to discover new particles and unveil new interactions and symmetries beyond those predicted in the Standard Model (SM).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe measured two-neutrino double beta decay of ^{130}Te using an exposure of 300.7 kg yr accumulated with the CUORE detector. Using a Bayesian analysis to fit simulated spectra to experimental data, it was possible to disentangle all the major background sources and precisely measure the two-neutrino contribution.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe report new results from the search for neutrinoless double-beta decay in ^{130} Te with the CUORE detector. This search benefits from a fourfold increase in exposure, lower trigger thresholds, and analysis improvements relative to our previous results. We observe a background of (1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe report on the measurement of the two-neutrino double-β decay of ^{82}Se performed for the first time with cryogenic calorimeters, in the framework of the CUPID-0 experiment. With an exposure of 9.95 kg yr of Zn^{82}Se, we determine the two-neutrino double-β decay half-life of ^{82}Se with an unprecedented precision level, T_{1/2}^{2ν}=[8.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCUPID-0 is the first pilot experiment of CUPID, a next-generation project for the measurement of neutrinoless double beta decay (0νDBD) with scintillating bolometers. The detector, consisting of 24 enriched and 2 natural ZnSe crystals, has been taking data at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso from June 2017 to December 2018, collecting a ^{82}Se exposure of 5.29 kg×yr.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe report the result of the search for neutrinoless double beta decay of ^{82}Se obtained with CUPID-0, the first large array of scintillating Zn^{82}Se cryogenic calorimeters implementing particle identification. We observe no signal in a 1.83 kg yr ^{82}Se exposure, and we set the most stringent lower limit on the 0νββ ^{82}Se half-life T_{1/2}^{0ν}>2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe CUORE experiment, a ton-scale cryogenic bolometer array, recently began operation at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy. The array represents a significant advancement in this technology, and in this work we apply it for the first time to a high-sensitivity search for a lepton-number-violating process: ^{130}Te neutrinoless double-beta decay. Examining a total TeO_{2} exposure of 86.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur Phys J C Part Fields
May 2018
The CUPID-0 detector hosted at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Italy, is the first large array of enriched scintillating cryogenic detectors for the investigation of Se neutrinoless double-beta decay ( ). CUPID-0 aims at measuring a background index in the region of interest (RoI) for at the level of 10 counts/(keV kg years), the lowest value ever measured using cryogenic detectors. CUPID-0 operates an array of Zn Se scintillating bolometers coupled with bolometric light detectors, with a state of the art technology for background suppression and thorough protocols and procedures for the detector preparation and construction.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur Phys J C Part Fields
November 2018
The CUPID-0 experiment searches for double beta decay using cryogenic calorimeters with double (heat and light) read-out. The detector, consisting of 24 ZnSe crystals 95 enriched in Se and two natural ZnSe crystals, started data-taking in 2017 at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso. We present the search for the neutrino-less double beta decay of Se into the 0 , 2 and 2 excited states of Kr with an exposure of 5.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur Phys J C Part Fields
September 2018
The suppression of spurious events in the region of interest for neutrinoless double beta decay will play a major role in next generation experiments. The background of detectors based on the technology of cryogenic calorimeters is expected to be dominated by particles, that could be disentangled from double beta decay signals by exploiting the difference in the emission of the scintillation light. CUPID-0, an array of enriched Zn Se scintillating calorimeters, is the first large mass demonstrator of this technology.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur Phys J C Part Fields
July 2016
The R&D activity performed during the last years proved the potential of ZnSe scintillating bolometers to the search for neutrino-less double beta decay, motivating the realization of the first large-mass experiment based on this technology: CUPID-0. The isotopic enrichment in [Formula: see text]Se, the Zn[Formula: see text]Se crystals growth, as well as the light detectors production have been accomplished, and the experiment is now in construction at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (Italy). In this paper we present the results obtained testing the first three Zn[Formula: see text]Se crystals operated as scintillating bolometers, and we prove that their performance in terms of energy resolution, background rejection capability and intrinsic radio-purity complies with the requirements of CUPID-0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe report the results of a search for neutrinoless double-beta decay in a 9.8 kg yr exposure of (130)Te using a bolometric detector array, CUORE-0. The characteristic detector energy resolution and background level in the region of interest are 5.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF209Bi alpha decay to the ground and to the first excited state have been recently observed for the first time with a large BGO scintillating bolometer. The half-life of 209Bi is determined to be τ(1/2)=(2.01±0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe incidence of alpha-thalassaemia in an Italian population has been determined by a survey of random cord bloods for the presence of Hb Bart's. 144 out of 4730 (3%) had detectable amounts of Hb Bart's. Furthermore, alpha-globin gene analysis of 100 random cord bloods showed that five out of 100 had the common type of alpha-thalassaemia caused by a single alpha-globin gene deletion (-alpha).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArzneimittelforschung
November 1979
A homogeneous series of alpha, beta-unsaturated gamma-lactones was prepared. Their in vitro activity against various microorganisms was quantitatively correlated, with the Hansch approach, to their lipophilicity, expressed by Rm chromatographic values. Although all the experimental results show a parabolic dependence, only in few cases the parabolic model calculated by Hansch fits to them.
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