Project Details
Projekt
Low Temperature Detectors and Data Analysis
Applicant
Privatdozentin Dr. Loredana Gastaldo
Subject Area
Nuclear and Elementary Particle Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Fields
Term
from 2015 to 2019
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 254114301
In the ECHo experiment, the high statistics and high resolution Ho-163 spectrum will be acquired by using large arrays of metallic magnetic calorimeters detectors (MMC) with ion implanted Ho-163. MMCs are low temperature detectors characterized by excellent energy resolution, fast response time and reliable calibration function. In the first phase of ECHo, we aimed at defining the main features of MMCs with Ho-163 ion-implanted in the absorbers to be used in the ECHo-1k experiment. We demonstrated that activities of about 10 Bq do not lead to a significant degradation of the detector performance and we have studied methods which allow the implantation of such amounts of Ho-163 in MMC absorbers. These results guided us in defining the detector arrays to be used in ECHo-1k and in the starting phase of the following experiment ECHo-100k. To better understand the spectral shape, experiments designed to investigate structures due to higher order excited states in the daughter atom Dy-163 were performed, among which a measurement in the underground laboratories in Modane. Analysis tools to study the effect of massive neutrinos on the Ho-163 electron capture spectrum have been developed. In the proposed second funding period, we plan to carry out the ECHo-100k experiment, for which 100 kBq of Ho-163 will be enclosed in about 12000 pixels. The analysis of the Ho-163 spectrum, consisting in a total statistics of the order of 10^13 events will open the possibility to investigate the value of the electron neutrino mass below 2 eV/c2. WG2 will again have a twofold work program: first, design, fabrication, installation and operation of MMC arrays and, second, the development of analysis tools both for the reduction of the acquired data and for the analysis of the Ho-163 spectrum with clear emphasis on the end-point region. For both tasks, we aim to show, in addition, the scalability of the developed approaches for the next phases of the ECHo experiment. At the same time, we propose to perform key experiments for the assessment of the Ho-163 spectral shape as the measurement of the X-ray spectrum following electron capture in Ho-163 and the measurement of low-energy electron capture in other nuclides. Our efforts, together with the results achieved by WG4, for the definition of the background level, and by WG6, for the definition of the expected spectral shape, will allow for reducing the systematic errors in the analysis of the end-point region of the Ho-163 spectrum.
DFG Programme
Research Units
Co-Investigator
Professor Dr. Christian Walter Dietrich Enss
