Double-beta decay of ${}^{130}$Te to the first $0^+$ excited state of ${}^{130}$Xe with CUORE-0
nucl-ex
/ Authors
CUORE Collaboration, C. Alduino, K. Alfonso, D. R. Artusa, F. T. Avignone, O. Azzolini, T. I. Banks, G. Bari, J. W. Beeman, F. Bellini
and 111 more authors
A. Bersani, M. Biassoni, C. Brofferio, C. Bucci, A. Caminata, L. Canonica, X. G. Cao, S. Capelli, L. Cappelli, L. Carbone, L. Cardani, P. Carniti, N. Casali, L. Cassina, D. Chiesa, N. Chott, M. Clemenza, S. Copello, C. Cosmelli, O. Cremonesi, R. J. Creswick, J. S. Cushman, A. D'Addabbo, I. Dafinei
/ Abstract
We report on a search for double beta decay of $^{130}$Te to the first $0^{+}$ excited state of $^{130}$Xe using a 9.8 kg$\cdot$yr exposure of $^{130}$Te collected with the CUORE-0 experiment. In this work we exploit different topologies of coincident events to search for both the neutrinoless and two-neutrino double-decay modes. We find no evidence for either mode and place lower bounds on the half-lives: $τ^{0ν}_{0^+}>7.9\cdot 10^{23}$ yr and $τ^{2ν}_{0^+}>2.4\cdot 10^{23}$ yr. Combining our results with those obtained by the CUORICINO experiment, we achieve the most stringent constraints available for these processes: $τ^{0ν}_{0^+}>1.4\cdot 10^{24}$ yr and $τ^{2ν}_{0^+}>2.5\cdot 10^{23}$ yr.