Study of rare alpha decays with scintillating bolometers

Rare α decays can be studied with an unprecedented sensitivity by means of scintillating bolometers, as these detectors can provide a large source mass as well as an excellent resolution and can disentangle the nature of the interacting particle thanks to the different light yield. As an example of the results that can be obtained with this technique, I report the conclusive test on the identification of 209Bi decay and the measurement of the half-life of this isotope. In addition, I present a measurement with a PbWO4 scintillating bolometer, in which the lead isotopes decays were studied.