Towards The Cuore Project

CUORE (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events) project plans to use approximately 1000 TeO2 crystals of 5x5x5 cm(3) (similar to 750 g of mass each) as bolometers, for a total detector mass around 1 ton. To completely test the feasibility of such large cryogenic detector an intermediate step named CUORICINO (for small CUORE) was proposed. It will be an array of 56 TeO2 crystals for a total detector mass of 42 kg. With so big cryogenic detectors it will be possible to reach very high sensitivities in double beta decay search of Te-130, in search for dark matter, in detection of solar axions, and other possible measurements are under study. Preliminary tests on the 750 g TeO2 crystals are very promising.