| Seminar Date: | Thursday, November 14, 2013 |
| Time: | 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM |
| Location: | El Dorado |
| Abstract: | The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is an experiment that will search for the neutrinoless double-beta (0íââ) decay of 130Te. The CUORE detector, currently being constructed underground at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy, is an array of 988 high-resolution, low-background cryogenic bolometers. Each bolometer is comprised of a thermal sensor and a TeO2 crystal that serves as both a source and a detector of 0íââ decay. The 0íââ decay signature for 130Te is a peak at the Q-value 2528 keV. Observation of 0íââ decay requires that the background rate at the peak be ultra-low; CUORE is aiming for a rate less than 0.01 counts/keV/kg/y. Background-source identification and characterization are therefore extremely important. One source of background that is poorly characterized is activation of the TeO2 crystals by sea-level cosmic-ray neutrons. This process, known as cosmogenic activation, produces long-lived radioisotopes that can obscure the 0íââ decay peak. Existing cross-section data is insufficient to estimate this background; therefore an additional cross-section measurement has been performed in which a TeO2 target is irradiated with a neutron spectrum similar to that of cosmic-ray neutrons at sea-level. The cross-sections obtained have been combined with Monte Carlo simulations of the CUORE detector to estimate the cosmogenic activation background that will be present in CUORE. |
| Speaker: | Barbara Wang - Berkeley
 Barbara Wang is a graduate student in nuclear engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. She currently conducts research for the Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE), a neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment located at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy. The focus of her doctoral dissertation is characterizing and estimating the background contribution in CUORE from cosmogenic neutron activation of TeO2.
|