Status of LUMINEU program to search for neutrinoless double beta decay of 100Mo with cryogenic ZnMoO4 scintillating bolometers

F. A. Danevich (1) , L. Bergé (2) , R. S. Boiko (1) , M. Chapellier (2) , D. M. Chernyak (2) , N. Coron (3) , L. Devoyon (4) , A.-A. Drillien (2) , L. Dumoulin (2) , C. Enss (5) , A. Fleischmann (5) , L. Gastaldo (5) , A. Giuliani (6) , D. Gray (4) , M. Gros (4) , S. Hervé (4) , V. Humbert (2) , I. M. Ivanov (7) , A. Juillard (8) , V. V. Kobychev (1) , F. Koskas (4) , M. Loidl (9) , P. Magnier (4) , E. P. Makarov (7) , M. Mancuso (2, 6) , P. De Marcillac (2) , S. Marnieros (2) , C. Marrache-Kikuchi (2) , X.-F. Navick (4) , C. Nones (4) , E. Olivieri (2) , B. Paul (4) , Y. Penichot (4) , G. Pessina (10, 11) , O. Plantevin (2) , D. V. Poda (1, 2) , T. Redon (3) , M. Rodrigues (9) , V. N. Shlegel (7) , O. Strazzer (4) , M. Tenconi (2) , L. Torres (3) , V. I. Tretyak (1, 12) , Ya. V. Vasiliev (7) , M. Velazquez (13) , O. Viraphong (13)

1 KINR - Kiev Institute for Nuclear Research
2 CSNSM - Centre de Sciences Nucléaires et de Sciences de la Matière
3 IAS - Institut d'astrophysique spatiale
4 IRFU - Institut de Recherches sur les lois Fondamentales de l'Univers
5 Kirchhoff Institut für Physik
6 Uninsubria - Universitá degli Studi dell’Insubria = University of Insubria [Varese]
7 NIC - Nikolaev Institute of Inorganic Chemistry [Novosibirsk]
8 IPNL - Institut de Physique Nucléaire de Lyon
9 LNHB (CEA, LIST) - Laboratoire National Henri Becquerel (CEA, LIST)
10 INFN - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Milano
11 UNIMIB - Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca = University of Milano-Bicocca
12 INFN - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare [Sezione di Roma 1]
13 ICMCB - Institut de Chimie de la Matière Condensée de Bordeaux

The LUMINEU program aims at performing a pilot experiment on 0ν2β decay of 100 Mo using radiopure ZnMoO4 crystals enriched in 100 Mo operated as cryogenic scintillating bolometers. Large volume ZnMoO4 crystal scintillators (∼ 0.3 kg) were developed and tested showing high performance in terms of radiopurity, energy resolution and α/β particle discrimination capability. Zinc molybdate crystal scintillators enriched in 100 Mo were grown for the first time by the low-thermal-gradient Czochralski technique with a high crystal yield and an acceptable level of enriched molybdenum irrecoverable losses. A background level of ∼ 0.5 counts/(yr keV ton) in the region of interest can be reached in a large detector array thanks to the excellent detectors radiopurity and particle discrimination capability, suppression of randomly coinciding events by pulse-shape analysis, and anticoincidence cut. These results pave the way to future sensitive searches based on the LUMINEU technology, capable of approaching and exploring the inverted hierarchy region of the neutrino mass pattern.

Mots clés: NUCLEI; OXYGEN COMPOUNDS; PARTICLE IDENTIFICATION; TRANSITION ELEMENT COMPOUNDS; TRANSITION ELEMENTS; STABLE ISOTOPES; SIGNAL CONDITIONERS; RESOLUTION; REFRACTORY METALS; REFRACTORY METAL COMPOUNDS; PULSE CIRCUITS; METALS; MEASURING INSTRUMENTS; ISOTOPES; INTERMEDIATE MASS NUCLEI; EVEN-EVEN NUCLEI; ELEMENTS; ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS; DECAY; BETA-MINUS DECAY; BETA DECAY; ZINC COMPOUNDS; TEMPERATURE GRADIENTS; PULSE SHAPERS; PHOSPHORS; PARTICLE DISCRIMINATION; NUCLEAR DECAY; MOLYBDENUM COMPOUNDS; ANTICOINCIDENCE; BOLOMETERS; CRYSTALS; DOUBLE BETA DECAY; ENERGY RESOLUTION; MOLYBDATES; MOLYBDENUM 100; MOLYBDENUM ISOTOPES

Domaines: Physique Nucléaire Expérimentale [nucl-ex]; Instrumentations et Détecteurs [physics.ins-det]

F. A. Danevich, L. Bergé, R. S. Boiko, M. Chapellier, D. M. Chernyak, et al.. Status of LUMINEU program to search for neutrinoless double beta decay of 100Mo with cryogenic ZnMoO4 scintillating bolometers. Matrix Elements for the Double-beta-decay EXperiments (MEDEX'15), Jun 2015, Prague, Czech Republic. pp.020007, ⟨10.1063/1.4934896⟩. ⟨in2p3-01226305⟩