Development of $^{100}$Mo-containing scintillating bolometers for a high-sensitivity neutrinoless double-beta decay search
Creators: name: Armengaud, E.
name: Augier, C.
name: Barabash, A. S.
name: Beeman, J. W.
name: Bekker, T. B.
name: Bellini, F.
name: Benoît, A.
name: Bergé, L.
name: Bergmann, T.
name: Billard, J.
name: Boiko, R. S.
name: Broniatowski, A.
name: Brudanin, V.
name: Camus, P.
name: Capelli, S.
name: Cardani, L.
name: Casali, N.
name: Cazes, A.
name: Chapellier, M.
name: Charlieux, F.
name: Chernyak, D. M.
name: de Combarieu, M.
name: Coron, N.
name: Danevich, F. A.
name: Dafinei, I.
name: De Jesus, M.
name: Devoyon, L.
name: Di Domizio, S.
name: Dumoulin, L.
name: Eitel, K.
name: Enss, C.
name: Ferroni, F.
name: Fleischmann, A.
name: Foerster, N.
name: Gascon, J.
name: Gastaldo, L.
name: Gironi, L.
name: Giuliani, A.
name: Grigorieva, V. D.
name: Gros, M.
name: Hehn, L.
name: Hervé, S.
name: Humbert, V.
name: Ivannikova, N. V.
name: Ivanov, I. M.
name: Jin, Y.
name: Juillard, A.
name: Kleifges, M.
name: Kobychev, V. V.
name: Konovalov, S. I.
name: Koskas, F.
name: Kozlov, V.
name: Kraus, H.
name: Kudryavtsev, V. A.
name: Laubenstein, M.
name: Sueur, H. Le
name: Loidl, M.
name: Magnier, P.
name: Makarov, E. P.
name: Mancuso, M.
name: de Marcillac, P.
name: Marnieros, S.
name: Marrache-Kikuchi, C.
name: Nagorny, S.
name: Navick, X-F.
name: Nikolaichuk, M. O.
name: Nones, C.
name: Novati, V.
name: Olivieri, E.
name: Pagnanini, L.
name: Pari, P.
name: Pattavina, L.
name: Pavan, M.
name: Paul, B.
name: Penichot, Y.
name: Pessina, G.
name: Piperno, G.
name: Pirro, S.
name: Plantevin, O.
name: Poda, D. V.
name: Queguiner, E.
name: Redon, T.
name: Rodrigues, M.
name: Rozov, S.
name: Rusconi, C.
name: Sanglard, V.
name: Schäffner, K.
name: Scorza, S.
name: Shlegel, V. N.
name: Siebenborn, B.
name: Strazzer, O.
name: Tcherniakhovski, D.
name: Tomei, C.
name: Tretyak, V. I.
name: Umatov, V. I.
name: Vagneron, L.
name: Vasiliev, Ya. V.
name: Velazquez, M.
name: Vignati, M.
name: Weber, M.
name: Yakushev, E.
name: Zolotarova, A. S.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2017
Subjects: subject: Instrumentation and Detectors (physics.ins-det)
subject: Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: This paper reports on the development of a technology involving $^{100}$Mo-enriched scintillating bolometers, compatible with the goals of CUPID, a proposed next-generation bolometric experiment to search for neutrinoless double-beta decay. Large mass ($\sim$1~kg), high optical quality, radiopure $^{100}$Mo-containing zinc and lithium molybdate crystals have been produced and used to develop high performance single detector modules based on 0.2--0.4~kg scintillating bolometers. In particular, the energy resolution of the lithium molybdate detectors near the $Q$-value of the double-beta transition of $^{100}$Mo (3034~keV) is 4--6~keV FWHM. The rejection of the $α$-induced dominant background above 2.6~MeV is better than 8$σ$. Less than 10~$μ$Bq/kg activity of $^{232}$Th ($^{228}$Th) and $^{226}$Ra in the crystals is ensured by boule recrystallization. The potential of $^{100}$Mo-enriched scintillating bolometers to perform high sensitivity double-beta decay searches has been demonstrated with only 10~kg$\times$d exposure: the two neutrino double-beta decay half-life of $^{100}$Mo has been measured with the up-to-date highest accuracy as $T_{1/2}$ = [6.90 $\pm$ 0.15(stat.) $\pm$ 0.37(syst.)] $\times$ 10$^{18}$~yr. Both crystallization and detector technologies favor lithium molybdate, which has been selected for the ongoing construction of the CUPID-0/Mo demonstrator, containing several kg of $^{100}$Mo.
description: 25 pages, 12 figures, 8 tables; submitted to EPJC