Radiopurity of a kg-scale PbWO4 cryogenic detector produced from archaeological Pb for the RES-NOVA experiment

• Published in: The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields Vol. 82; no. 8
• Main Authors: Beeman, J. W., Benato, G., Bucci, C., Canonica, L., Carniti, P., Celi, E., Clemenza, M., D’Addabbo, A., Danevich, F. A., Di Domizio, S., DiLorenzo, S., Dubovik, O. M., Ferreiro Iachellini, N., Ferroni, F., Fiorini, E., Fu, S., Garai, A., Ghislandi, S., Gironi, L., Gorla, P., Gotti, C., Guillaumon, P. V., Helis, D. L., Kovtun, G. P., Mancuso, M., Marini, L., Olmi, M., Pagnanini, L., Pattavina, L., Pessina, G., Petricca, F., Pirro, S., Pozzi, S., Puiu, A., Quitadamo, S., Rothe, J., Scherban, A. P., Schönert, S., Solopikhin, D. A., Strauss, R., Tarabini, E., Tretyak, V. I., Tupitsyna, I. A., Wagner, V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 10-08-2022; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Archaeology; Astronomy; Astrophysics and Cosmology; Coherent scattering; Crystals; Detectors; Elastic scattering; Elementary Particles; Experiments; Hadrons; Heavy Ions; Lead isotopes; Measurement Science and Instrumentation; Neutrinos; Nuclear Energy; Nuclear Physics; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Quantum Field Theories; Quantum Field Theory; Radioactive contaminants; Radium 226; Regular Article - Experimental Physics; Sensors; String Theory; Supernovae
• ISSN: 1434-6044; 1434-6052
• DOI: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-022-10656-8

RES-NOVA is a newly proposed experiment for detecting neutrinos from astrophysical sources, mainly Supernovae, using an array of cryogenic detectors made of PbWO
4
crystals produced from archaeological Pb. This unconventional material, characterized by intrinsic high radiopurity, enables low-background levels in the region of interest for the neutrino detection via Coherent Elastic neutrino-Nucleus Scattering (CE
ν
NS). This signal lies at the detector energy threshold,
O
(1 keV), and it is expected to be hidden by naturally occurring radioactive contaminants of the crystal absorber. Here, we present the results of a radiopurity assay on a 0.84 kg PbWO
4
crystal produced from archaeological Pb operated as a cryogenic detector. The crystal internal radioactive contaminations are:
232
Th <40 
μ
Bq/kg,
238
U <30 
μ
Bq/kg,
226
Ra 1.3 mBq/kg and
210
Pb 22.5 mBq/kg. We also present a background projection for the final experiment and possible mitigation strategies for further background suppression. The achieved results demonstrate the feasibility of realizing this new class of detectors.