Commissioning of the NUCLEUS Experiment at the Technical University of Munich

Abstract

The NUCLEUS experiment aims to detect coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering of reactor antineutrinos on CaWO₄ targets in the fully coherent regime, using gram-scale cryogenic calorimeters. The experimental apparatus will be installed at the Chooz nuclear power plant in France, in the vicinity of two 4.25 GWₜₕ reactor cores. This work presents results from the commissioning of an essential version of the experiment at the shallow Underground Laboratory of the Technical University of Munich. For the first time, two cryogenic target detectors were tested alongside active and passive shielding systems. Over a period of two months, all detector subsystems were operated with stable performance. Background measurements were conducted, providing important benchmarks for the modeling of background sources at the reactor site. Finally, we present ongoing efforts to upgrade the detector systems in preparation for a technical run at Chooz in 2026, and highlight the remaining challenges to achieving neutrino detection.