Flux-averaged cross sections for cosmogenic-neutron activation of natural tellurium were measured using a neutron beam containing neutrons of kinetic energies up to ∼800 MeV and having an energy spectrum similar to that of cosmic-ray neutrons at sea level. Analysis of the radioisotopes produced reveals that Ag110m will be a dominant contributor to the cosmogenic-activation background in experiments searching for neutrinoless double-β decay of Te130, such as the Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) and the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Plus (SNO+). An estimate of the cosmogenic-activation background in the CUORE experiment has been obtained using the results of this measurement and cross-section measurements of proton activation of tellurium. Additionally, the measured cross sections in this work are also compared with results from semiempirical cross-section calculations.

The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is the first bolometric experiment searching for neutrinoless double beta decay that has been able to reach the 1-ton scale. The detector consists of an array of 988 TeO2 crystals arranged in a cylindrical compact structure of 19 towers. The construction of the experiment and, in particular, the installation of all towers in the cryostat was completed in August 2016 and commissioning started in fall 2016. The experiment has completed the pre-operation phase and is currently in data taking. We present here the achievements of CUORE during the commissioning phase and the limit on the 130Te half-life for the neutrinoless double beta decay that has been released after the first 3 weeks of collected data. Physics results from CUORE-0 will also be updated.

CUORE is a cryogenic detector that will be operated at LNGS to search for neutrinoless double beta decay (0ββ) of 130Te. The detector installation was completed in summer 2016. Before the installation, several cold runs were done to test the cryogenic system performance. In the last cold run the base temperature of 6.3mK was reached in stable condition. CUORE-0, a CUORE prototype, has proven the feasibility of CUORE, demonstrating that the target background of 0.01 counts/keV/kg/y and the energy resolution of 5 keV are within reach.

We report a study of the CUORE sensitivity to neutrinoless double beta (0) decay. We used a Bayesian analysis based on a toy Monte Carlo (MC) approach to extract the exclusion sensitivity to the 0 decay half-life (T1/20ν) at 90 % credibility interval (CI) – i.e. the interval containing the true value of T1/20ν with 90 % probability – and the 3σ discovery sensitivity. We consider various background levels and energy resolutions, and describe the influence of the data division in subsets with different background levels. If the background level and the energy resolution meet the expectation, CUORE will reach a 90 % CI exclusion sensitivity of 2 · 10 25 year with 3 months, and 9 · 10 25 year with 5 years of live time. Under the same conditions, the discovery sensitivity after 3 months and 5 years will be 7 · 10 24 year and 4 · 10 25 year, respectively.

The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is a ton-scale double beta decay experiment based on TeO2 cryogenic bolometers and is currently in the last construction stage at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS). Its primary goal is to observe neutrino-less double beta decay of 130Te, however thanks to the ultra-low background and large projected exposure it could also be suitable for other rare event searches, as the detection of solar axions, neutrinos from type II supernovae or direct detection of dark matter. The sensitivity for these searches will depend on the performance achieved at the low energy threshold. For this reason a trigger algorithm based on continuous data filtering has been developed which will allow lowering the threshold down to the few keV region. The new trigger has been tested in CUORE-0, a single-tower CUORE prototype consisting of 52 TeO2 bolometers and recently concluded, and here we present the results in terms of trigger efficiency, data selection and low-energy calibration.

The CUORE-0 experiment, a 52 bolometer array searching for neutrinoless double beta decay from130Te, has started taking data in spring 2013 underground at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS). The excellent results obtained in terms of energy resolution and background level allowed this experiment to reach the sensitivity of Cuoricino in approximately half the runtime. Combining CUORE-0 data (9.8 kg·yr exposure of130Te) with the 19.75 kg·yr exposure of the Cuoricino experiment, we obtain the most stringent limit to date on the half-life of this isotope (T1/2> 4.0 × 1024yr). In this article, we review the results from CUORE-0 and discuss the status and the physics potential of CUORE, a 19 times larger bolometer array that plans to begin operations by end of this year.

CUORE, the Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events, is an experiment searching for the neutrinoless double-beta decay of 130Te. The first CUORE dataset was acquired in May and June 2017 and consisted of 10.6 kg-yr of TeO2 exposure, with several days of calibration data before and after the physics dataset. We discuss here the initial performance of the CUORE detector and cryostat in this first dataset.

CUORE is a tonne-scale cryogenic experiment located at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso that exploits bolometric technique to search for neutrinoless double beta decay of 130Te. Thanks to its very low background and large mass, CUORE is also a powerful tool to study a broad class of phenomena, such as solar axions and WIMP scattering. The ability to conduct such sensitive searches crucially depends on the energy threshold, which has to be kept as low as possible. In this contribution, we show how the trigger algorithm affects the sensitivity to low-energy phenomena and the interpretation of the energy spectrum. In particular, we focus on the impact that the trigger algorithm has on the identification of the coincidence events among different crystals and, consequently, on the reconstruction of the background.

The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is the first cryogenic experiment searching for neutrinoless double-beta ($0 u\beta\beta$) decay that has been able to reach the one-ton scale. The detector, located at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy, consists of an array of 988 TeO$_2$ crystals arranged in a compact cylindrical structure of 19 towers. Following the completion of the detector construction in August 2016, CUORE began its first physics data run in 2017 at a base temperature of about 10 mK. Following multiple optimization campaigns in 2018, CUORE is currently in stable operating mode. In 2019, CUORE released its 2\textsuperscript{nd} result of the search for $0 u\beta\beta$ with a TeO$_2$ exposure of 372.5 kg$\cdot$yr and a median exclusion sensitivity to a $^{130}$Te $0 u\beta\beta$ decay half-life of $1.7\cdot 10^{25}$ yr. We find no evidence for $0 u\beta\beta$ decay and set a 90\% C.I. (credibility interval) Bayesian lower limit of $3.2\cdot 10^{25}$ yr on the $^{130}$Te $0 u\beta\beta$ decay half-life. In this work, we present the current status of CUORE's search for $0 u\beta\beta$, as well as review the detector performance. Finally, we give an update of the CUORE background model and the measurement of the $^{130}$Te two neutrino double-beta ($2 u\beta\beta$) decay half-life.

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 130Te. 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 60keV. 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.