RUI: Analysis, Simulation, and Onsite Activities Contributing to the Search for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay in Tellurium Using the CUORE Detector

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This award will provide funds for a three-year RUI grant for continued support for a program of undergraduate student research with the CUORE (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events) experiment at the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly). CUORE is a next-generation cryogenic bolometry experiment to search for neutrinoless double beta decay in tellurium. The observation of this decay would indicate that neutrinos are Majorana fermions and therefore are their own antiparticle. It also isolates the scale for the effective Majorana neutrino mass, identifying the appropriate neutrino mass hierarchy. Students will have the exciting opportunity to participate in hands-on CUORE construction at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Assergi, Italy. In addition, they will assist with shift activity with CUORE-0, an intermediate single-tower of CUORE slated to be online by mid-2010, designed to demonstrate background, analysis, and material milestones before full CUORE deployment in 2012. Locally at Cal Poly, students will explore various proposed detector calibration schemes by running GEANT4 simulations, and test these simulations against existing data from Cuoricino, a recently decommissioned prototype of CUORE. They will also write and utilize software to obtain nuclear spectra from the raw data obtained by the earlier Cuoricino detector and help with software development to process CUORE and CUORE-0 data. Concerning Broader Impacts, experiments such as CUORE bring together many experimental and analytical techniques from low temperature, solid-state, particle, and nuclear physics. Improvements in these technologies may lead to benefits in other areas of science and engineering where they are applied. Both neutrino and underground physics are subjects that spark the imagination and provide a unique platform for vigorous public outreach through Cal Poly's Center for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Education and the local Central Coast Astronomical Society.