The CRAB facility at the TU Wien TRIGA reactor: status and related physics program
The Crab (Calibrated nuclear Recoils for Accurate Bolometry) project aims to precisely characterize the response of cryogenic detectors to sub-keV nuclear recoils of direct interest for coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering and dark matter search experiments. The Crab method relies on the radiative capture of thermal neutrons in the target detector, resulting in a nuclear recoil with a well-defined energy. We present a new experimental setup installed at the TRIGA Mark-II reactor at Atominstitut (Vienna), providing a low intensity beam of thermal neutrons sent to the target cryogenic detector mounted inside a wet dilution refrigerator Kelvinox 100. After the presentation of all components of the setup we report the analysis of first commissioning data with CaWO <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mmultiscripts><mml:mrow></mml:mrow> <mml:mn>4</mml:mn> <mml:mrow></mml:mrow></mml:mmultiscripts> </mml:math> detectors of the Nucleus experiment. They show stable operation of the cryostat and detectors on a week-scale. Due to an energy resolution currently limited to 20 eV we use neutron beam induced events at high energy, in the 10 to 100 keV range, to demonstrate the excellent agreement between the data and simulation and the accurate understanding of external background. Thanks to these data we also propose an updated decay scheme of the low-lying excited states of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mmultiscripts><mml:mrow></mml:mrow> <mml:mrow></mml:mrow> <mml:mn>187</mml:mn></mml:mmultiscripts> </mml:math> W. Finally, we present the first evidence of neutron-capture induced coincidences between BaF <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mmultiscripts><mml:mrow></mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> <mml:mrow></mml:mrow></mml:mmultiscripts> </mml:math> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mi>γ</mml:mi></mml:math> -detectors installed around the dewar and the inner cryogenic detector. These promising results pave the way for an extensive physics program with various detector materials, like CaWO <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mmultiscripts><mml:mrow></mml:mrow> <mml:mn>4</mml:mn> <mml:mrow></mml:mrow></mml:mmultiscripts> </mml:math> , Al <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mmultiscripts><mml:mrow></mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> <mml:mrow></mml:mrow></mml:mmultiscripts> </mml:math> O <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mmultiscripts><mml:mrow></mml:mrow> <mml:mn>3</mml:mn> <mml:mrow></mml:mrow></mml:mmultiscripts> </mml:math> , Ge and Si.
Authors
- F. Cappella (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0900-6794)
- D. Lhuillier (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2324-0149)
- E. Bossio (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9304-1829)
- T. Ortmann
- O. Litaize (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2627-4045)
- J. Billard (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2110-2033)
- S. Fichtinger
- C. Schwertner
- M. Kaznacheeva (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2712-1326)
- M Vignati
- A. Erhart (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8721-177X)
- F. Reindl (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0151-2174)
- B. Arnold
- Dieter Hainz
- S. Schönert (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5276-2881)
- M. Vivier (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2199-0958)
- Jean-Paul Crocombette (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9543-3973)
- S. Marnieros (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0558-2807)
- J. Burkhart (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1989-7845)
- Robert Martin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1727-9557)
- L. Thulliez
- G. del Castello (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7182-358X)
- L. Peters (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1649-8582)
- H. Abele (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6832-9051)
- H. Kluck (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3061-3732)
- C. Goupy (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4954-5311)
- N. Casali (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3669-8247)
- R. Thalmeier
- S. Dorer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-1670-5780)
- A. Wex (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-5371-2466)
- D.V Poda
- E. Jericha (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8663-0526)
- G. Soum-Sidikov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1900-1794)
- Du Toit Strauss (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0205-0808)
- J. Schieck (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1058-8093)
- J. Rothe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5748-7428)
- E. Namuth (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-9516-2058)
- Clemens Trunner
- M. Friedl (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7420-2559)
- A. Armatol (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0061-4606)
- R. Cerulli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2051-3471)
- T. Lasserre (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4975-2321)
- D. Hauff
- P. de Marcillac
- M. del Gallo Roccagiovine (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-5861-7443)
- N. Schermer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-4213-5154)
- Colin Doutre
- P. Garin
- J. Colás
- P. Ajello
- R. Gergen
- W. Reindl
- F. Rodari
- P. Wasser
Institutions
- Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (FR)
- University of Rome Tor Vergata (IT)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- TU Wien (AT)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (IT)
- Lyon College (US)
- Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (FR)
- Université Paris-Saclay (FR)
- CEA Grenoble (FR)
- CEA Cadarache (FR)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Roma Tor Vergata (IT)
- Max Planck Institute for Mathematics (DE)
- CEA Paris-Saclay (FR)
- Institute of High Energy Physics (AT)
- Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (FR)
- Laboratoire de Physique des 2 Infinis Irène Joliot-Curie (FR)
- Institute of Nuclear Physics of Lyon (FR)
- Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (DE)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Roma I (IT)
- Institut de Recherche sur les Lois Fondamentales de l'Univers (FR)
- Institut de Physique des 2 Infinis de Lyon (FR)
- Institut de Recherche sur les Systèmes Nucléaires pour la production d'Energie bas carbone (FR)
- Technical University of Munich (DE)
- Sapienza University of Rome (IT)
Publication Details
- Journal
- The European Physical Journal C
- Published
- 2025-10-22
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-025-14809-3
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Radiation Detection and Scintillator Technologies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 3.77
Funders
- European Commission
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche
- Austrian Science Fund
- Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie