A new R&D on lithium molybdate scintillators has begun within a project CLYMENE (Czochralski growth of Li2MoO4 crYstals for the scintillating boloMeters used in the rare EveNts sEarches). One of the ...main goals of the CLYMENE is a realization of a Li2MoO4 crystal growth line to be complementary to the one recently developed by LUMINEU in view of a mass production capacity for CUPID, a next-generation tonne-scale bolometric experiment to search for neutrinoless double-beta decay. In the present paper we report the investigation of performance and radiopurity of 158-g and 13.5-g scintillating bolometers based on a first large-mass (230 g) Li2MoO4 crystal scintillator developed within the CLYMENE project. In particular, a good energy resolution (2–7 keV FWHM in the energy range of 0.2–5 MeV), one of the highest light yield (0.97 keV/MeV) amongst Li2MoO4 scintillating bolometers, an efficient alpha particles discrimination (10σ) and potentially low internal radioactive contamination (below 0.2–0.3 mBq/kg of U/Th, but 1.4 mBq/kg of 210Po) demonstrate prospects of the CLYMENE in the development of high quality and radiopure Li2MoO4 scintillators for CUPID.
We present the performances of two 92% enriched 130TeO2 crystals operated as thermal bolometers in view of a next generation experiment to search for neutrinoless double beta decay of 130Te. The ...crystals, 435 g each, show an energy resolution, evaluated at the 2615 keV γ-line of 208Tl, of 6.5 and 4.3 keV FWHM. The only observable internal radioactive contamination arises from 238U (15 and 8 μBq/kg, respectively). The internal activity of the most problematic nuclei for neutrinoless double beta decay, 226Ra and 228Th, are both evaluated as <3.1 μBq/kg for one crystal and <2.3 μBq/kg for the second. Thanks to the readout of the weak Cherenkov light emitted by β/γ particles by means of Neganov–Luke bolometric light detectors we were able to perform an event-by-event identification of β/γ events with a 95% acceptance level, while establishing a rejection factor of 98.21% and 99.99% for α particles.
A
bstract
Neutrinoless double-beta decay is a key process in particle physics. Its experimental investigation is the only viable method that can establish the Majorana nature of neutrinos, providing ...at the same time a sensitive inclusive test of lepton number violation. CROSS (Cryogenic Rare-event Observatory with Surface Sensitivity) aims at developing and testing a new bolometric technology to be applied to future large-scale experiments searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay of the promising nuclei
100
Mo and
130
Te. The limiting factor in large-scale bolometric searches for this rare process is the background induced by surface radioactive contamination, as shown by the results of the CUORE experiment. The basic concept of CROSS consists of rejecting this challenging background component by pulse-shape discrimination, assisted by a proper coating of the faces of the crystal containing the isotope of interest and serving as energy absorber of the bolometric detector. In this paper, we demonstrate that ultra-pure superconductive Al films deposited on the crystal surfaces act successfully as pulse-shape modifiers, both with fast and slow phonon sensors. Rejection factors higher than 99.9% of
α
surface radioactivity have been demonstrated in a series of prototypes based on crystals of Li
2
MoO
4
and TeO
2
. We have also shown that point-like energy depositions can be identified up to a distance of
∼
1 mm from the coated surface. The present program envisions an intermediate experiment to be installed underground in the Canfranc laboratory (Spain) in a CROSS-dedicated facility. This experiment, comprising
∼
3
×
10
25
nuclei of
100
Mo, will be a general test of the CROSS technology as well as a worldwide competitive search for neutrinoless double-beta decay, with sensitivity to the effective Majorana mass down to 70 meV in the most favorable conditions.
•820 g LMO crystal grown by the Czochralski method.•LMO elastic properties and stress anisotropies evaluated.•Concave tail shape generates more stresses than convex ones.
A new technology for the ...mass production of lithium molybdate (Li2MoO4) crystals needed for the realization of the cryogenic neutrinoless double-beta decay detectors is under development within the framework of the CLYMENE project. Crystals with 4 and 5 cm in diameter were grown in two different Czochralski configurations. The first configuration, based on inductive heating of a RF coil coupled with a platinum crucible, was used to grow crystals of 4 cm in diameter. Bolometric tests performed with two samples cut from a 230 g crystal have shown less performances of the large sample (158 g), which had a cleavage, as compared to the small non-cracked sample (13.5 g). Numerical modeling was applied to investigate the temperature field in the furnace, the melt convection and thermo-elastic stresses in the crystal. Numerical results reveal 30% higher thermal stress at the bottom part of the ingot in the case of a concave shape of the crystal tail (experimental case) as compared to the case of a convex shaped tail. This could explain why the fracture started at the bottom part of the 230 g crystal boule, and highlights the importance of the crystal shape in the last stage of growth process. The furnace configuration used to grow 5 cm-diameter crystals was numerically optimized in order to reduce the thermal stress in the crystals. The first kg-mass Li2MoO4 ingot grown in the optimized configuration exhibit regular shape and good structural quality.
Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEνNS) offers a valuable approach in searching for physics beyond the standard model. The
Ricochet
experiment aims to perform a precision measurement of ...the CEνNS spectrum at the Institut Laue–Langevin nuclear reactor with cryogenic solid-state detectors. The experiment plans to employ an array of cryogenic thermal detectors, each with a mass of around 30 g and an energy threshold of below 100 eV. The array includes nine detectors read out by transition-edge sensors (TES). These TES-based detectors will also serve as demonstrators for future neutrino experiments with thousands of detectors. In this article, we present an update on the characterization and modeling of a prototype TES detector.
Properties of Low TC AlMn TES Wang, G.; Bratrud, G.; Chang, C. L. ...
Journal of low temperature physics,
2024/5, Letnik:
215, Številka:
3-4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Low T
C
AlMn transition-edge sensors (TESs) have been developed as sensitive thermometers for the Q-Array, which will use superconducting targets to measure the coherent elastic neutrino nucleus ...scattering spectrum in the RICOCHET experiment. The TESs are made of manganese-doped aluminum with a titanium and gold antioxidation layer. A prototype TES thermometer consists of two TESs in parallel, an input gold pad in metallic contact with the TESs and an output gold pad and gold thermal link meanders, which are each designed to control the flow of heat through the TESs. We have fabricated and measured low T
C
AlMn TES chips with or without thermal flow control structures. We present T
C
measurements of the TESs after the initial fabrication and further T
C
tuning by re-heating and summarize the thermal property studies of the prototype TES thermometer by measuring I-V curves and complex impedance.
Neutrinoless double-beta (
0
ν
β
β
) decay is a hypothetical rare nuclear transition (
T
1
/
2
>
10
25
–
10
26
year). Its observation would provide an important insight into the nature of neutrinos ...(Dirac or Majorana particle) demonstrating that the lepton number is not conserved. This decay can be investigated with bolometers embedding the double-beta decay isotope (
76
Ge
,
82
Se
,
100
Mo
,
116
Cd
,
130
Te
...), which perform as low-temperature calorimeters (few tens of mK) detecting particle interactions via a small temperature rise read out by a dedicated thermometer. Cryogenic Rare-event Observatory with Surface Sensitivity (CROSS) aims at the development of bolometric detectors (based on
Li
2
MoO
4
and
TeO
2
crystals) capable of discriminating surface
α
and
β
interactions by exploiting superconducting properties of Al film deposited on the detector surface. We report in this paper the results of tests on prototypes performed at CSNSM (Orsay, France) that showed the capability of a-few-
μ
m
-thick superconducting Al film deposited on crystal surface to discriminate surface
α
from bulk events, thus providing the detector with the required pulse shape discrimination capability. The CROSS technology would further improve the background suppression and simplify the detector construction (no auxiliary light detector is needed to reject alpha surface events) with a view to future competitive double-beta decay searches.
Cadmium-116 is one of the favorable candidates for neutrinoless double-beta decay (
0
ν
β
β
) searches from both theoretical and experimental points of view, in particular thanks to the high energy ...of the decay (2813.49 keV), the possibility of the industrial enrichment in
116
Cd
and its use in the well-established production of cadmium tungstate crystal scintillators. In this work, we present low-temperature tests of two
0.6
kg
116
CdWO
4
crystals enriched in
116
Cd
to
82
%
as scintillating bolometers. These detectors were operated underground, with one at the Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane (LSM) in France and the second at the Laboratorio Subterraneo de Canfranc (LSC) in Spain. The two crystals are coupled to bolometric Ge light detectors in order to register the scintillation light. The double readout of heat and scintillation enables reduction in the background in the region of interest by discriminating between different populations of particles. The main goal of these tests is the study of the crystals’ radiopurity and the detectors’ performance. The achieved results are extremely promising, in particular, the detectors demonstrate a high energy resolution (11–16 keV FWHM at 2615 keV) and a high-efficiency discrimination of the alpha background (
∼
20
σ
). These results, achieved for the first time with large mass enriched
116
CdWO
4
crystals, demonstrate prospects of the bolometric technology for high-sensitivity searches of
116
Cd
0
ν
β
β
decay.
The CUPID-Mo experiment at the Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane (France) is a demonstrator for CUPID, the next-generation ton-scale bolometric 0νββ experiment. It consists of a 4.2 kg array of 20 ...enriched Li2 100MoO4 scintillating bolometers to search for the lepton-number-violating process of 0νββ decay in 100Mo. With more than one year of operation (100Mo exposure of 1.17 kg × yr for physics data), no event in the region of interest and, hence, no evidence for 0νββ is observed. We report a new limit on the half-life of 0νββ decay in 100Mo of T1/2 > 1.5 × 1024 yr at 90% C.I. The limit corresponds to an effective Majorana neutrino mass ⟨m β β⟩ < (0.31 –0.54 ) eV, dependent on the nuclear matrix element in the light Majorana neutrino exchange interpretation.
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