Abstract

CUORE is a tonne-scale cryogenic detector operating at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) that uses tellurium dioxide bolometers to search for neutrinoless double-beta decay of ^{130}Te. CUORE is also suitable to search for low energy rare events such as solar axions or WIMP scattering, thanks to its ultra-low background and large target mass. However, to conduct such sensitive searches requires improving the energy threshold to 10 keV. In this paper, we describe the analysis techniques developed for the low energy analysis of CUORE-like detectors, using the data acquired from November 2013 to March 2015 by CUORE-0, a single-tower prototype designed to validate the assembly procedure and new cleaning techniques of CUORE. We explain the energy threshold optimization, continuous monitoring of the trigger efficiency, data and event selection, and energy calibration at low energies in detail. We also present the low energy background spectrum of CUORE-0 below 60 , mathrm {keV}. Finally, we report the sensitivity of CUORE to WIMP annual modulation using the CUORE-0 energy threshold and background, as well as an estimate of the uncertainty on the nuclear quenching factor from nuclear recoils inCUORE-0.

Highlights

  • CUORE (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events) is a tonne-scale cryogenic detector primarily designed to search for the neutrinoless double-beta (0νββ) decay of 130Te [1,2]

  • We restrict our analysis to Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) interacting with the target nuclei in the detector via elastic scattering off nuclei; for this reason, we present a study of the nuclear quenching factor of TeO2 obtained in CUORE-0

  • We have presented the analysis techniques developed for low energy rare event searches with CUORE and their validation using the data acquired with the CUORE-0 experiment

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Summary

Introduction

CUORE (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events) is a tonne-scale cryogenic detector primarily designed to search for the neutrinoless double-beta (0νββ) decay of 130Te [1,2]. While CUORE will be one of the leading 0νββ decay experiments during its scheduled 5 years of data-taking, it will benefit from the ultra-low background and large target mass to search for lower energy rare events, such as the direct detection of Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) dark matter or solar axions [9]. We developed a new low energy software trigger, the “optimal trigger” (OT) [14], based on filtering the continuous data stream before the application of the trigger condition We implemented this algorithm in test measurements of the bolometric performance of a small number of CUORE crystals in a dedicated setup (CUORE Crystal Validation Runs, CCVR) [15].

The CUORE-0 experiment
Optimal trigger optimization and efficiency evaluation
Data selection and energy threshold determination
Dataset-bolometer selection criteria
Event selection criteria
Energy threshold determination
Energy calibration
Energy spectrum
CUORE sensitivity to WIMP annual modulation
TeO2 nuclear quenching factor
WIMP sensitivity of CUORE
Findings
Summary

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