RUI: A Search for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay in Tellurium Using the Cuoricino Detector

这项提案要求RUI拨款，以支持加州理工州立大学圣路易斯·奥比斯波(加州理工大学)的库里奇诺实验的本科生研究项目。Cuoricino是CUORE(低温地下稀有事件观测站)的原型，是目前世界上最大的运行中的低温测辐射热计和无中微子双β衰变实验，产生了有竞争力的结果。对无中微子的β衰变的观察表明，中微子是马约拉纳费米子，因此是它们自己的反粒子。许多报告表明，这一决定将是非常重要的结果。加州大学保利分校本科生活动的主要重点将是从原始库里奇诺数据开始进行物理分析。主要目标将是编写和利用软件，从Cuoricino探测器记录的原始数据中获取核谱，并提取物理信息，如双β衰变寿命极限。如果成功，这将通过提供另一种分析工作来检查结果并帮助改进为Cuoricino编写的现有和开发的软件包，从而使学生和合作伙伴受益。根据计划，本科生还将有机会参加位于意大利阿瑟吉的Gran Sasso国家实验室(LNGS)的Cuoricino实践轮班活动。

This proposal requests an RUI grant to support a program of undergraduate student research with the Cuoricino experiment at the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly). Cuoricino is a prototype for CUORE (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events) and is currently the largest operating cryogenic bolometer and neutrinoless double beta decay experiment in the world producing competitive results. The observation of neutrinoless beta decays would indicate that neutrinos are Majorana fermions and, therefore, are their own anti-particles. Many reports indicate that this determination would be a result of great importance.The main focus of undergraduate student activity at Cal Poly will be to perform physics analysis starting with raw Cuoricino data. The primary objective will be to write and utilize software to obtain nuclear spectra from the raw data recorded by the Cuoricino detector and extract physics information such as the double beta decay lifetime limit. If successful, this will benefit the students as well as the collaboration by providing an alternative analysis effort to examine the results and help refine existing and developing software packages being written for Cuoricino. It is planned that undergraduate students will also have the opportunity to participate in hands-on Cuoricino shift activity at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS) in Assergi, Italy.