Eur. Phys. J. C (2017) 77: 532
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-017-5098-9

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

CUORE sensitivity to decay

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, 29208, USA
² Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
³ INFN-Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, 67010, L’Aquila, Assergi, Italy
⁴ INFN-Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro, 35020, Padua, Legnaro, Italy
⁵ Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
⁶ Nuclear Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
⁷ INFN-Sezione di Bologna, Bologna, 40127, Italy
⁸ Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
⁹ Dipartimento di Fisica, Sapienza Università di Roma, Roma, 00185, Italy
¹⁰ INFN-Sezione di Roma, Roma, 00185, Italy
¹¹ INFN-Sezione di Genova, Genova, 16146, Italy
¹² Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Milano-Bicocca, Milano, 20126, Italy
¹³ INFN-Sezione di Milano Bicocca, Milano, 20126, Italy
¹⁴ INFN-Sezione di Padova, Padova, 35131, Italy
¹⁵ Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
¹⁶ Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 201800, China
¹⁷ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Genova, Genova, 16146, Italy
¹⁸ Department of Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA
¹⁹ INFN-Gran Sasso Science Institute, L’Aquila, 67100, Italy
²⁰ Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche e Chimiche, Università dell’Aquila, L’Aquila, 67100, Italy
²¹ INFN-Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Frascati, Rome, 00044, Italy
²² CSNSM, University of Paris-Sud, CNRS/IN2P3, Universit Paris-Saclay, 91405, Orsay, France
²³ Physics Department, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA, 93407, USA
²⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
²⁵ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China
²⁶ Physics Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
²⁷ Laboratorio de Fisica Nuclear y Astroparticulas, Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, 50009, Spain
²⁸ Dipartimento di Scienze per la Qualità della Vita, Alma Mater Studiorum-Università di Bologna, Bologna, 47921, Italy
²⁹ Service de Physique des Particules, CEA/Saclay, 91191, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
³⁰ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, 94550, USA
³¹ Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
³² Center for Neutrino Physics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, USA
³³ Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile e Meccanica, Università degli Studi di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale, Cassino, 03043, Italy
³⁴ Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706, USA
³⁵ SUPA, Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Blackford Hill, Edinburgh, EH9 3HJ, UK
³⁶ Engineering Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
³⁷ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Alma Mater Studiorum-Università di Bologna, Bologna, 40127, Italy

^* e-mail: cuore-spokesperson@lngs.infn.it

Received: 29 May 2017
Accepted: 21 July 2017
Published online: 9 August 2017

Abstract

We report a study of the CUORE sensitivity to neutrinoless double beta () decay. We used a Bayesian analysis based on a toy Monte Carlo (MC) approach to extract the exclusion sensitivity to the decay half-life () at  credibility interval (CI) – i.e. the interval containing the true value of with probability – and the discovery sensitivity. We consider various background levels and energy resolutions, and describe the influence of the data division in subsets with different background levels. If the background level and the energy resolution meet the expectation, CUORE will reach a  CI exclusion sensitivity of  year with 3 months, and  year with 5 years of live time. Under the same conditions, the discovery sensitivity after 3 months and 5 years will be  year and  year, respectively.