L. Gastaldo

Metallic magnetic calorimeters

Metallic magnetic calorimeters (MMC) are calorimetric particle detectors, typically operated at temperatures below 100 mK, that make use of a paramagnetic temperature sensor to transform the temperature rise upon the absorption of a particle in the detector into a measurable magnetic flux change in a dc‐SQUID. During the last years a growing number of groups has started to develop MMC for a wide variety of applications, ranging from alpha‐, beta‐ and gamma‐spectrometry over the spatially resolved detection of accelerated molecule fragments to arrays of high resolution x‐ray detectors. For x‐rays with energies up to 6 keV an energy resolution of 2.7 eV (FWHM) has been demonstrated and we expect that this can be pushed below 1 eV with the next generation of devices. We give an introduction to the physics of MMCs and summarize the presently used readout schemes as well as the typically observed noise contributions and their impact on the energy resolution. We discuss general design considerations, the micro‐fabrication of MMCs and the performance of micro‐fabricated devices. In this field large progress has been achieved in the last years and the thermodynamic properties of most materials approach bulk values allowing for optimal and predictable performance.

Direct Measurement of the Mass Difference of

The atomic mass difference of (163)Ho and (163)Dy has been directly measured with the Penning-trap mass spectrometer SHIPTRAP applying the novel phase-imaging ion-cyclotron-resonance technique. Our measurement has solved the long-standing problem of large discrepancies in the Q value of the electron capture in (163)Ho determined by different techniques. Our measured mass difference shifts the current Q value of 2555(16) eV evaluated in the Atomic Mass Evaluation 2012 [G. Audi et al., Chin. Phys. C 36, 1157 (2012)] by more than 7σ to 2833(30(stat))(15(sys)) eV/c(2). With the new mass difference it will be possible, e.g., to reach in the first phase of the ECHo experiment a statistical sensitivity to the neutrino mass below 10 eV, which will reduce its present upper limit by more than an order of magnitude.

^{163}

For the first time we have investigated the behavior of fully micro-fabricated low temperature metallic magnetic calorimeters (MMCs) after undergoing an ion-implantation process. This experiment had the aim to show the possibility to perform a high precision calorimetric measurement of the energy spectrum following the electron capture of 163 Ho using MMCs having the radioactive 163 Ho ions implanted in the absorber. The implantation of 163 Ho ions was performed at ISOLDE-CERN. The performance of a detector that underwent an ion-implantation process is compared to the one of a detector without implanted ions. The results show that the implantation dose of ions used in this experiment does not compromise the properties of the detector. In addition an optimized detector design for future 163 Ho

Ho and

Ho to 163 Dy is probably due to the small Q value of about 2.5 keV the best case to determine the neutrino mass by electron capture. The energy of the Q value is distributed between the excitation of Dysprosium (and the neglected small recoil of Holmium) and the relativistic energy of the emitted neutrino including the rest mass. The reduction of the upper end of the deexcitation spectrum of Dysprosium below the Q value allows to determine the neutrino mass. The excitation of Dysprosium can be calculated in the sudden approximation of the overlap of the electron wave functions of Holmium minus the captured electron and one- , two-, three- and multiple hole- excitations in Dysprosium. Robertson (R. G. H. Robertson, Phys. Rev. C91, 035504 (2015) and arViv: 1411.2906) and Faessler and Simkovic (Amand Faessler, Fedor Simkovic, accepted for Phys. Rev. C, March 2015 and arXiv: 1501.04338) have calculated the influence of the two-hole states on the Dysprosium spectrum. Here for the first time the influence of the three-hole states on the deexcitation bolometer spectrum of 163 Dysprosium is presented. The electron wave functions and the overlaps are calculated selfconsistently in a fully relativistic and antisymmetrized Dirac- Hartree-Fock approach in Holmium and in Dysprosium. The electron orbitals in Dy are determined including the one-hole states in the selfconsistent iteration. The influence of the three-hole states on the Dy deexcitation (by X-rays and Auger electrons) can hardly be seen. The three-hole states seem not to be relevant for the determination of the electron neutrino mass.

^{163}

Metallic magnetic calorimeters (MMCs) are widely used for various experiments in fields ranging from atomic and nuclear physics to X-ray spectroscopy, laboratory astrophysics or material science. Whereas in previous experiments single pixel detectors or small arrays have been used, for future applications large arrays are needed. Therefore, suitable multiplexing techniques for MMC arrays are currently under development. A promising approach for the readout of large arrays is the microwave SQUID multiplexer that employs non-hysteretic rf-SQUIDs to create a frequency shift of high

Q

Q

Characterization of low temperature metallic magnetic calorimeters having gold absorbers with implanted 163Ho ions

Q resonators that is in accordance with the detector signal and that can be monitored by using standard microwave measurement techniques. In this paper we discuss the design of a recently developed and fabricated 64 pixel detector array with integrated microwave SQUID multiplexer that was produced to test the suitability of this readout technique. The characterization of dc-SQUIDs with virtually identical washer design compared to the rf-SQUIDs of the SQUID multiplexer revealed that the crucial SQUID parameters such as the critical current of the Josephson junctions or the washer inductance are close to the design values and anticipates a successful operation of the SQUID multiplexer.

Determination of the neutrino mass by electron capture in

A joint effort of cryogenic microcalorimetry (CM) and high-precision Penning-trap mass spectrometry (PT-MS) in investigating atomic orbital electron capture (EC) can shed light on the possible existence of heavy sterile neutrinos with masses from 0.5 to 100 keV. Sterile neutrinos are expected to perturb the shape of the atomic de-excitation spectrum measured by CM after a capture of the atomic orbital electrons by a nucleus. This effect should be observable in the ratios of the capture probabilities from different orbits. The sensitivity of the ratio values to the contribution of sterile neutrinos strongly depends on how accurately the mass difference between the parent and the daughter nuclides of EC transitions can be measured by, for example, PT-MS. A comparison of such probability ratios in different isotopes of a certain chemical element allows one to exclude many systematic uncertainties, and thus could make feasible a determination of the contribution of sterile neutrinos on a level below 1%. Several electron capture transitions suitable for such measurements are discussed.