Physics of rare events: insights on Napoleon death

Abstract

This unusual report tries to show that the high level of sophistication reached in the instrumentation in experiments on rare events can allow to investigate with unprecedented accuracy problems far from those of fundamental physics, but quite important in other fields of physics. The technique and the know-how on neutron activation developed to reduce the background due to spurious events in the CUORE detector to search for neutrinoless double beta decay has been applied to determine the arsenic contents in the hairs of Napoleon Bonaparte and of historical subjects of his time and to compare it with those of subjects living presently. This contents has been found to be about two orders of magnitude larger than the present ones. The As concentration in the hairs of the Emperor is large, but similar to those of the his contemporaries. In additions a comparison among fraction of one of his hairs allows to exclude a criminal act.