CUORE

Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events

Neutrinos are the most mysterious among the particles of the Standard Model.

Ettore Majorana, back in the ‘30s, developed a theory about their nature, but after almost 80 years we do not know yet whether neutrinos are Dirac particles, like all others in the Standard Model, or Majorana particles. The CUORE experiment searches for the so-called neutrinoless double beta decay, the only known observable which can disentangle between the two theories. The experiment, currently taking data at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics, is made with about 1 ton of tellurium dioxide crystals operated as cryogenic calorimeters at a temperature of about 10 mK. This very low temperature for such a large detector mass is obtained with one of the most powerful dilution refrigerators ever built. The Genova group is responsible for the detector suspension system, and the data acquisition, it has a strong involvement in data analysis and was also involved in the development of ultra-cleaning techniques.

The CUORE experiment is co-funded in Italy by the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN).

For more information visit: https://cuore.lngs.infn.it/

Other institutions staff

A. Caminata
Ricercatore INFN