The CUORICINO 130Te ßß-decay experiment and a new limit on T1/20?(ßß)

Year: 2004

Authors: Arnaboldi C., Artusa D.R., Avignone III F.T., Balata M., Bandac I., Barucci M., Beeman J., Brofferio C., Bucci C., Capelli S., Carbone L., Cebrian S., Cremonesi O., Creswick R.J., De Waard A., Farach H.A., Fascilla A., Fiorini E., Frossati G., Giuliani A., Gorla P., Haller E.E., Irastorza I.G., McDonald R.J., Morales A., Norman E.B., Nucciotti A., Olivieri E., Palmieri V., Pasca E., Pavan M., Pedretti M., Pessina G., Pirro S., Previtali E., Pobes C., Pyle M., Risegari L., Rosenfeld C., Sisti M., Smith A.R., Torres L., Ventura G.

Autors Affiliation: Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Milano, INFN, Italy; Department of Physics, University of South Carolina, Columbia, United States; Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, INFN, Assergi (L\’Aquila), Italy; Dipartimento di Fisica, Univ. di Firenze e Sezione di F., INFN, Italy; Lawrence Berkeley Natl. Laboratory, CA, United States; Lab. de Fis. Nucl. y Altas Energias, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain; Kamerling Onnes Laboratory, Leiden University, Netherlands; Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche, Fisiche e Matematiche, INFN, Como, Italy; Dept. of Mat. Sci. and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, United States; Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro, Legnaro (Padova), Italy

Abstract: The CUORICINO ßß-decay detector is an array of 62 TeO2 bolometers; 44 are 5 × 5 × 5-cm crystals made with natural tellurium (33.8% 130Te). There are 18, 3 × 3 × 6-cm crystals, 14 of which are made of natural tellurium, 2 are isotopically enriched to 75% in 130Te, and 2 are enriched to 82.3% in 128Te. The total mass of 130Te is ~ 11 kg. The background rate is 0.23 ± 0.04 counts/keV/kg/yr in the energy interval 2480 to 2600 keV. During the cooling process, some of the wires became disconnected and only 32 of the large and 16 of the smaller crystals could be read out. The data presented here come from 29 of the 5 × 5 × 5-cm crystals containing 6.2 kg of 130Te. The new limit on the half-life is T1/2 0? = 5 × 1023 yr, corresponding to an effective Majorana mass of the electron neutrino (m?) between 0.42 and 2.05 eV, depending on the nuclear model used to analyze the data.

Journal/Review: PHYSICS OF ATOMIC NUCLEI

Volume: 67 (6)      Pages from: 1220  to: 1226

KeyWords: Decay; Neutrinos; Double β
DOI: 10.1134/1.1772464

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