First Results from CUORE - Search for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay in 130Te

by Prof. Karsten Heeger (Yale University)

Thursday 12 Apr 2018, 15:00 → 16:00 US/Eastern

Small Seminar Room

The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is a ton-scale cryogenic experiment at Gran Sasso National Laboratory designed to search for neutrinoless double-beta decay (0νββ) in tellurium-130. The experiment consists of 988 ultracold tellurium dioxide bolometric crystals, which act as both the double-beta decay sources and detectors. An observation of neutrinoless double-beta decay would be direct evidence of lepton number violation and unambiguously prove that neutrinos are Majorana particles. This talk presents the first results from CUORE based on an exposure of 83.6 kg yr of tellurium dioxide. With this data we find no evidence for neutrinoless double-beta decay and set the world-leading limit on the rate of 0νββ in 130Te