Direct measurement of the ionization quenching factor of nuclear recoils in germanium in the keV energy range

Bonhomme, A.; Bonet, H.; Buck, C.; Hakenmüller, J.; Heusser, G.; Hugle, T.; Lindner, M.; Maneschg, W.; Nolte, R.; Rink, T.; Pirovano, E.; Strecker, H.

doi:10.48550/arxiv.2202.03754

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 35 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The scintillator cell was developed and first used in the context of an ionization quenching measurement in germanium (Ge) crystals [26]. In this measurement, eleven LS modules were positioned around a Ge detector for a coincidence measurement of scattered neutrons inside the crystals.…”

Section: Scintillator Modulementioning

confidence: 99%

Safe liquid scintillators for large scale detectors

Bonhomme¹,

Buck²,

B.³

et al. 2022

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Many experiments in particle physics, in particular in the field of neutrino searches, rely on organic liquid scintillators as target and detection material. The size of these detectors was continously growing in the last decades, up to the kiloton scale. In several cases these detectors are located at sites with enhanced safety requirements as underground laboratories or in the vicinity of nuclear reactors. Therefore, there is strong demand in liquids which are safe with respect to aspects as fire protection, human health or environmental pollution. In particular, properties as the flash point, the vapor pressure or the toxicity need to be significantly improved as compared to classical solvents such as xylene or pseudocumene. We present and compare the performance and optical properties of scintillators based on high flash point solvents. In particular polysiloxane based scintillators are characterized by outstanding properties in terms of safety.

show abstract

Section: Scintillator Modulementioning

confidence: 99%

Safe liquid scintillators for large scale detectors

Bonhomme¹,

Buck²,

B.³

et al. 2022

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Recently, there is a large interest in measuring the QF as it limits current low mass DM and CEvNS experiments. The CONUS collaboration e.g., measured the QF of germanium down to nuclear recoil energies of 0.4 keV [6].…”

Section: Dark Matter Search and Neutrino Physics With Low-threshold C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Accurate Calibration of Nuclear Recoils at the 100 eV Scale Using Neutron Capture

Wagner

2022

J Low Temp Phys

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Searches for light dark matter (DM) and studies of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEvNS) imply the detection of nuclear recoils in the 100 eV range. However, an absolute energy calibration in this regime is still missing. The CRAB project proposes a method based on nuclear recoils induced by the emission of an MeV gamma following thermal neutron capture. A detailed feasibility study has shown that this method yields distinct nuclear recoil calibration peaks at 112 eV and 160 eV above background for tungsten. In the first phase, the CRAB project foresees to perform a nuclear recoil calibration of cryogenic CaWO4 detectors read-out by TES, similar to the detectors used in CRESST and NUCLEUS. The low-power TRIGA reactor in Vienna provides a clean beam of thermal neutrons well suited for such a measurement. Newly developed and compact sub-keV calibration sources based on x-ray fluorescence (XRF) provide an absolute energy calibration during operation at the research reactor as well as in the DM/CEvNS experiments. In the second phase, additional tagging of the photons produced in the de-excitation process will allow extending the calibration method to even lower energies and to a wider range of detector materials, such as Ge. Combined with the XRF source, CRAB may allow measuring energy quenching in the sub-keV regime.

show abstract

“…This loss mechanism called 'quenching effect' needs to be considered, also in the MC simulations. For the course of this publication, we rely on the recent quenching result from [42].…”

Section: Suppression Of Muon-induced Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of radiopure tungsten for low background applications

Hakenmüller

Maneschg

2022

J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this article we explore the availability of radiopure tungsten and its potential as high density shield material for low background applications. For compact shield designs, conventionally, lead is used. Metallic tungsten and tungsten pseudo-alloys reach higher densities up to 19.3 g cm−3 and do not exhibit a significant 210Pb activity, which is a typical intrinsic contamination in lead. Within several γ-ray screening campaigns we were able to identify tungsten samples with activities similar or better than 1 mBq kg−1 in 232Th, 40K, 60Co and the second part of the 238U decay chain. In cooperation with a manufacturer we further reduced a persisting contamination in the first part of the 238U decay chain by a factor of ∼2.5 down to (305 ± 30) mBq kg−1. With Monte Carlo simulations, the construction of prototype tungsten-based setups and dedicated measurements, the shield capability of tungsten in comparison to lead was extensively studied. Specifically, the impact of cosmogenic radiation on the background at shallow depth was investigated. We showed that a 6%–40% reduction (depending on the exact shield configuration) in the muon-induced neutron fluence is achievable by replacing lead with an equivalent amount of tungsten regarding the suppression of external γ-radiation. Overall, many benefits using tungsten especially for low energy applications below a few 100 keV are found. The pseudo-tungsten alloy presented in this work paves the way for several applications especially regarding background suppression in particle and astroparticle physics search programs.

show abstract

Direct measurement of the ionization quenching factor of nuclear recoils in germanium in the keV energy range

Cited by 7 publications

References 35 publications

Safe liquid scintillators for large scale detectors

Safe liquid scintillators for large scale detectors

Accurate Calibration of Nuclear Recoils at the 100 eV Scale Using Neutron Capture

Identification of radiopure tungsten for low background applications

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About