CUORE

Home page of the Experiment: http://crio.mib.infn.it/wig

CUORE is the acronym for "Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events". It consists in a series of experiments with very massive cryogenic detectors to investigate rare processes like double beta decay, interactions of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPS) and solar axions and to search for rare nuclear decays. In all these searches macrobolometers, which reach now masses of almost a kilogram, present the advantage of a very good resolution and of uncommon versatility allowing an ample choice of nuclei in different compounds. This is particularly promising in experiments on double beta decay or on interactions of WIMPS where various good thermal absorbers containing the candidate nucleus are available.

We are presently operating in Hall A an array of twenty crystals of TeO2 with a total mass of 6.8 kg, by far the largest in the world for a cryogenic detector. A second experiment named CUORICINO, made with an array of 56 larger detectors with a total mass of 42 kilograms has been approved and funded and R&D for this array are actively pursued in Hall C. A third experiment, named CUORE, with an array of 1020 crystals with a total mass of 780 kilogram is being designed