Discrimination of alpha and beta/gamma interactions in a TeO$_2$ bolometer

Understand

TeO$_2$ crystals have proven to be superb bolometers for the search of neutrinoless double beta decay in many respects.

• However, if used alone, they do not exhibit any feature that allows to discriminate an alpha energy deposit from a beta/gamma one.
• This fact limits their ability to reject the background due to natural radioactivity and eventually affects the sensitivity of the search.
• In this paper we show the results of a TeO$_2$ crystal where, in coincidence with its bolometric heat signal, also the luminescence light escaping the crystal is recorded.