The first phase of the MARE project in Milano

The international project 'Microcalorimeter Arrays for a Rhenium Experiment' (MARE) aims at the direct and calorimetric measurement of the electron anti-neutrino mass with sub-electronvolt sensitivity. The experimental strategy consists in studying the beta spectrum of 187Re near the end-point looking for the spectral distortion expected for a finite anti-neutrino mass. The MARE project has a staged approach: in the final experimental phase (MARE-2), several large arrays with as many as 10 000 detectors each will be deployed to collect the statistics required to probe the anti-neutrino mass with a sensitivity of at least 0.2 eV, comparable to the one expected for the Katrin experiment (KATRIN LoI, 2001, ). In the short term, smaller scale experiments are planned to reach sensitivities of the order of 1 eV (MARE-1). This contribution reports on the Milano group activity for the MARE project.