Rejection of surface background in thermal detectors: The ABSuRD project

Abstract

Thermal detectors have recently achieved a leading role in the fields of Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay and Dark Matter searches thanks to their excellent energy resolution and to the wide choice of absorber materials. In these fields the background coming from surface contaminations is frequently dominant. ABSuRD (A Background Surface Rejection Detector) is a scintillation-based approach for tagging this type of background. We discuss the innovative application of this technique in non-scintillating bolometric detectors which will allow for a more favorable signal to background ratio.