An active discrimination of the dominant α-background is the prerequisite for future neutrinoless double-beta decay experiments based on TeO2 bolometers. We investigate such α-particle rejection in cryogenic TeO2 bolometers by the detection of Cherenkov light. For a setup consisting of a massive TeO2 crystal (285 g) and a separate cryogenic light detector, both using transition edge sensors as temperature sensors operated at around 10 mK, we obtain an event-by-event identification of e/γ- and α-events. We find in the energy interval ranging from 2400 keV to 2800 keV and covering the Q-value of the neutrinoless double-beta decay of 130Te a separation of the means of the two populations of 3.7 times their width.
@article{arxiv.1411.2562,
title = {Particle Discrimination in TeO$_{2}$ Bolometers using Light Detectors read out by Transition Edge Sensors},
author = {K. Schäffner and G. Angloher and F. Bellini and N. Casali and F. Ferroni and D. Hauff and S. S. Nagorny and L. Pattavina and F. Petricca and S. Pirro and F. Pröbst and F. Reindl and W. Seidel and R. Strauss},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1411.2562},
year = {2015}
}