Neutrinoless double-beta (0νββ) decay is a hypothesized lepton-number-violating process that offers the only known means of asserting the possible Majorana nature of neutrino mass. The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is an upcoming experiment designed to search for 0νββ decay of 130 Te using an array of 988 TeO 2 crystal bolometers operated at 10 mK. The detector will contain 206 kg of 130 Te and have an average energy resolution of 5 keV; the projected 0νββ decay half-life sensitivity after five years of live time is 1.6 × 10 26 y at 1σ (9.5 × 10 25 y at the 90% confidence level), which corresponds to an upper limit on the effective Majorana mass in the range 40-100 meV (50-130 meV). In this paper we review the experimental techniques used in CUORE as well as its current status and anticipated physics reach.

Neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ) is one of the most sensitive probes for physics beyond the Standard Model, providing unique information on the nature of neutrinos. In this paper we review the status and outlook for bolometric 0νββ decay searches. We summarize recent advances in background suppression demonstrated using bolometers with simultaneous readout of heat and light signals. We simulate several configurations of a future CUORE-like bolometer array which would utilize these improvements and present the sensitivity reach of a hypothetical next-generation bolometric 0νββ experiment. We demonstrate that a bolometric experiment with the isotope mass of about 1 ton is capable of reaching the sensitivity to the effective Majorana neutrino mass (|m ee |) of order 10-20 meV, thus completely exploring the so-called inverted neutrino mass hierarchy region. We highlight the main challenges and identify priorities for an R&D program addressing them.

In this article we describe the background challenges for the CUORE experiment posed by surface contamination of inert detector materials such as copper, and present three techniques explored to mitigate these backgrounds. Using data from a dedicated test apparatus constructed to validate and compare these techniques we demonstrate that copper surface contamination levels better than 10 −7 -10 −8 Bq/cm 2 are achieved for 238 U and 232 Th. If these levels are reproduced in the final CUORE apparatus the projected 90% C.L. upper limit on the number of background counts in the region of interest is 0.02-0.03 counts/keV/kg/y depending on the adopted mitigation technique.

The CUORE Crystal Validation Runs (CCVRs) have been carried out since the end of 2008 at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories, in order to test the performances and the radiopurity of the TeO 2 crystals produced at SICCAS (Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences) for the CUORE experiment. In this work the results of the first 5 validation runs are presented. Results have been obtained for bulk contaminations and surface contaminations from several nuclides. An extrapolation to the CUORE background has been performed.

We report the results of a search for axions from the 14.4 keV M1 transition from 57Fe in the core of the sun using the axio-electric effect in TeO2 bolometers. The detectors are 5 × 5 × 5 cm3 crystals operated at about 10 mK in a facility used to test bolometers for the CUORE experiment at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy. An analysis of 43.65 kg⋅d of data was made using a newly developed low energy trigger which was optimized to reduce the energy threshold of the detector. An upper limit of 0.58 c⋅kg−1⋅d−1 is established at 95% C.L., which translates into lower bounds fA ⩾ 3.12 × 105 GeV 95% C.L. (DFSZ model) and fA ⩾ 2.41 × 104 GeV 95% C.L. (KSVZ model) on the Peccei-Quinn symmetry-breaking scale, for a value of S = 0.5 of the flavor-singlet axial vector matrix element. These bounds can be expressed in terms of axion masses as mA ⩽ 19.2 eV and mA ⩽ 250 eV at 95% C.L. in the DFSZ and KSVZ models respectively. Bounds are given also for the interval 0.35 ⩽ S ⩽ 0.55.