Speaker
Description
CUPID-0 is the first large mass neutrinoless double beta decay (0νDBD) experiment based on cryogenic calorimeters with dual read-out of light and heat for background rejection. The detector, consisting of 26 ZnSe crystals, 2 natural and 24 enriched at 95% in Se82, coupled with bolometric light detectors, has been constructed respecting very strict protocols and procedures, from the material selection during crystal growth to the new and innovative detector structure for the assembly in a bid to achieve the best performance of the array. The successful construction of the detector lead to promising preliminary detector results, that will be presented. The array is in fact taking data underground at LNGS (Italy) since March 2017 and the particle identification, enabled by the heat and light simultaneous read-out, provides an unprecedented background level, for cryogenic calorimeters, of only 3.2×10-3 counts/keV/kg/y in the region of interest (ROI) of the 0νDBD search for Se82, namely around 3 MeV.