2 research outputs found

    Background suppression in massive TeO2_2 bolometers with Neganov-Luke amplified light detectors

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    Bolometric detectors are excellent devices for the investigation of neutrinoless double-beta decay (0νββ\nu\beta\beta). The observation of such decay would demonstrate the violation of lepton number, and at the same time it would necessarily imply that neutrinos have a Majorana character. The sensitivity of cryogenic detectors based on TeO2_2 is strongly limited by the alpha background in the region of interest for the 0νββ\nu\beta\beta of 130^{130}Te. It has been demonstrated that particle discrimination in TeO2_2 bolometers is possible measuring the Cherenkov light produced by particle interactions. However an event-by-event discrimination with NTD-based light detectors has to be demonstrated. We will discuss the performance of a highly-sensitive light detector exploiting the Neganov-Luke effect for signal amplification. The detector, being operated with NTD-thermistor and coupled to a 750 g TeO2_2 crystal, shows the ability for an event-by-event identification of electron/gamma and alpha particles. The extremely low detector baseline noise, RMS 19 eV, demonstrates the possibility to enhance the sensitivity of TeO2_2-based 0νββ\nu\beta\beta experiment to an unprecedented level
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