The 4 K outer cryostat for the CUORE experiment: construction and quality control

The external shell of the CUORE cryostat is a large cryogen-free system designed to host the dilution refrigerator and the bolometers of the CUORE experiment in a low radioactivity environment. The three vessels that form the outer shell were produced and delivered to the Gran Sasso underground Laboratories in July 2012. In this paper, we describe the production techniques and the validation tests done at the production site in 2012.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figures; to appear in NIM

Cryogenic thermal detectors as a powerful way to analyse internal activities

Abstract The Milano group is using an array of four crystals of TeO 2 , 334 g each, to search for neutrinoless double beta decay of 130 Te [A. Alessandrello et al., Phys. Lett. B 335 (1994) 519; Proc. 4th Int. Workshop on Theoretical and Phenomenological Aspects of Underground Physics — TAUP 95, to be published in Nucl. Phys. B (Proc. Suppl)]. The detectors are operating in a dilution refrigerator installed in the Underground National Laboratory of Gran Sasso specially built with low activity materials. Due to the low external background and the good energy resolution it is possible to obtain precise measurements of some internal contaminations of the detector itself. An analysis of a contamination of 210 Po and of the decay of 123 Te is presented

Preliminary results on double beta decay of 130Te with an array of twenty cryogenic detectors

Preliminary results on double beta decay of 130 Te obtained in the first run of an array of twenty cryogenic detectors are presented. The set-up is made with crystals of TeO of 340 grams each corresponding to the largest presently operating 2 cryogenic mass. It was run under a heavy shield in the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory at a depth of about 3500 m.w.e. By recording the pulses of each detector in anticoincidence with the others a 90% c.l. lower limit of 5.6 = 10 22 years has been obtained on the lifetime for neutrinoless double beta decay of 130 Te in a preliminary test run, corresponding to about one week of effective running time. No evidence is also found for double beta decay to the first excited 2 q state of 130 Xe with a 90% c.l. lower limit of 1.7 = 10 22 years on that lifetime. Some consequences of the present results in th

A scintillating bolometer for experiments on double beta decay

Abstract The scintillation yields of CaF 2 crystals with different doping concentration of Europium have been measured at low temperatures and their bolometric behavior has been investigated. After these studies we have constructed the first "scintillating bolometer" where the heat and scintillation pulses produced by charged particles are simultaneously recorded. With this method a strong suppression of the background from α -particles in the energy region of interest for searches on double beta decay of 48 Ca can be achieved

Preliminary results on the performance of a TeO2 thermal detector in a search for direct interactions of WIMPS

Abstract During a Double Beta Decay experiment performed at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, a 1548 hours background spectrum was collected with a 340 g TeO2 thermal detector. An analysis of this spectrum has been carried out to search for possible WIMP signals. The values for parameters which are essential in the search for WIMPs, like energy resolution (2 keV), energy threshold (13 keV) and nuclear recoil quenching factor (≥ 0.93) have been experimentally determined and are discussed in detail. The spectrum of recoils induced by α decays has been directly observed for the first time in coincidence with the α particle pulse. Preliminary limits on the spin-independent cross sections of WIMPs on Te and O nuclei have been obtained

A new search for neutrinoless ββ decay with a thermal detector

Abstract A 334 g TeO2 crystal has been operated at a temperature of around 10 mK for more than one year in a low intrinsic radioactivity dilution refrigerator installed in the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory. From the spectrum collected in 9234 h of effective running time we improve our limit on neutrinoless double beta decay of 130Te by an order of magnitude with respect to our previous experiment. It is the most stringent on this nucleus and excludes a large contribution of the neutrinoless mode to the rate of double beta decay found in geochemical experiments. Upper limits on the effective neutrino mass and on the contributions of right banded currents are given

The CUORE Cryostat: A 1-Ton Scale Setup for Bolometric Detectors

The cryogenic underground observatory for rare events (CUORE) is a 1-ton scale bolometric experiment whose detector consists of an array of 988 TeO2 crystals arranged in a cylindrical compact structure of 19 towers. This will be the largest bolometric mass ever operated. The experiment will work at a temperature around or below 10 mK. CUORE cryostat consists of a cryogen-free system based on pulse tubes and a custom high power dilution refrigerator, designed to match these specifications. The cryostat has been commissioned in 2014 at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories and reached a record temperature of 6 mK on a cubic meter scale. In this paper, we present results of CUORE commissioning runs. Details on the thermal characteristics and cryogenic performances of the system will be also given.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, LTD16 conference proceedin

The bolometers as nuclear recoil detectors

Our group is involved in experiments using bolometric detectors since ten years for rare event searches like double beta decay or Dark Matter interactions. During last year, to check the quenching factor of TeO 2 bolometers, we have measured the nuclear recoils at energy as low as 15 keV in our experimental apparatus at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso. Two 72g TeO 2 detectors were exposed under vacuum to a 228Ra a source that implanted on them 224Ra nuclei. The nuclei emitted by the implanted source were detected in one bolometer in coincidence with the corresponding a particles in the other. The energy spectrum of the 103.4 keV 224Ra nuclei has been obtained with an energy resolution of about 12 keV. Furthermore an a measurement of Roman lead has exploited also the sensitivity of this technique to check for ultralow activity in matter, taking advantage of the source,detector approach. A limit on the 210Pb contamination in roman lead as low as 4 mBq/Kg has been obtained. ( 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

Vibrational and thermal noise reduction for cryogenic detectors

In this paper we present the excellent results obtained by mechanical decoupling of our thermal detectors from the cryostat. The starting point of this work is the necessity to improve the performances of thermal detectors and, besides, to eliminate the non-constant noise resulting from the overall cryogenic facility; this second point results to be crucial for rare-events experiments and the fundamental task for Dark Matter search. Tested on our bolometer, consisting of a 750 g tellurium oxide absorber coupled with an NTD thermistor and operated at &9 mK in an Oxford 200 dilution refrigerator, this powerful technique can, moreover, provide advantages for a large variety of thermal detectors. A good energy resolution of 3.9 keV FWHM was obtained for 2.615 MeV c-rays. The 4.2 keV average FWHM resolution for the 5407 keV 210Po a decay line is the best ever obtained for a-particles with any type of detector. ( 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

Non-coding RNAs and endometrial cancer

Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) are involved in the regulation of cell metabolism and neoplastic transformation. Recent studies have tried to clarify the significance of these information carriers in the genesis and progression of various cancers and their use as biomarkers for the disease; possible targets for the inhibition of growth and invasion by the neoplastic cells have been suggested. The significance of ncRNAs in lung cancer, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, and melanoma has been amply investigated with important results. Recently, the role of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) has also been included in cancer studies. Studies on the relation between endometrial cancer (EC) and ncRNAs, such as small ncRNAs or micro RNAs (miRNAs), transfer RNAs (tRNAs), ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs), antisense RNAs (asRNAs), small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs), Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs), competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs), lncRNAs, and long intergenic ncRNAs (lincRNAs) have been published. The recent literature produced in the last three years was extracted from PubMed by two independent readers, which was then selected for the possible relation between ncRNAs, oncogenesis in general, and EC in particular