Commissioning of the NUCLEUS Experiment at the Technical University of Munich
Abstract
The NUCLEUS experiment aims to detect coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering of reactor antineutrinos on CaWO targets in the fully coherent regime, using gram-scale cryogenic calorimeters. The experimental apparatus will be installed at the Chooz nuclear power plant in France, in the vicinity of two 4.25 GW reactor cores. This work presents results from the commissioning of an essential version of the experiment at the shallow Underground Laboratory of the Technical University of Munich. For the first time, two cryogenic target detectors were tested alongside active and passive shielding systems. Over a period of two months all detector subsystems were operated with stable performance. Background measurements were conducted, providing important benchmarks for the modeling of background sources at the reactor site. Finally, we present ongoing efforts to upgrade the detector systems in preparation for a technical run at Chooz in 2026, and highlight the remaining challenges to achieving neutrino detection.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2508.02488,
title = {Commissioning of the NUCLEUS Experiment at the Technical University of Munich},
author = {H. Abele and G. Angloher and B. Arnold and M. Atzori Corona and A. Bento and E. Bossio and F. Buchsteiner and J. Burkhart and F. Cappella and M. Cappelli and N. Casali and R. Cerulli and A. Cruciani and G. Del Castello and M. del Gallo Roccagiovine and S. Dorer and A. Erhart and M. Friedl and S. Fichtinger and V. M. Ghete and M. Giammei and C. Goupy and D. Hauff and F. Jeanneau and E. Jericha and M. Kaznacheeva and H. Kluck and A. Langenkämper and T. Lasserre and D. Lhuillier and M. Mancuso and R. Martin and B. Mauri and A. Mazzolari and L. McCallin and H. Neyrial and C. Nones and L. Oberauer and T. Ortmann and L. Peters and F. Petricca and W. Potzel and F. Pröbst and F. Pucci and F. Reindl and M. Romagnoni and J. Rothe and N. Schermer and J. Schieck and S. Schönert and C. Schwertner and L. Scola and G. Soum-Sidikov and L. Stodolsky and R. Strauss and R. Thalmeier and C. Tomei and M. Vignati and M. Vivier and A. Wex},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.02488},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
20 pages, 21 figures