Liquid xenon as a dark matter detector. Prospects for nuclear recoil discrimination by photon timing

Davies, G.; Davies, John Dwyfor; Lewin, J.D.; Smith, P.F.; Jones, W. G.

doi:10.1016/0370-2693(94)90676-9

Cited by 41 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…However, due to the short timescales (∼4 ns and ∼22 ns for the two exponential decay times for alpha particles and fission fragments [7]) compared to typical photomultiplier tube (PMT) responses, pulse shape discrimination is challenging in liquid xenon detectors. The method has nevertheless been successfully applied as a particle identification method, either in combination with the S2/S1 ratio [10,11], or by itself, i.e., in single-phase detectors [9,[12][13][14]. In general, a single pulse shape parameter or an effective distribution (such as a single exponential) is used to describe the pulse shape.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Precision measurements of the scintillation pulse shape for low-energy recoils in liquid xenon

et al. 2018

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A: We present measurements of the scintillation pulse shape in liquid xenon for nuclear recoils (NR) and electronic recoils (ER) at electric fields of 0 to 0.5 kV/cm for energies <15 keV and <70 keV electron-equivalent, respectively. The average pulse shapes are well-described by an effective model with two exponential decay components, where both decay times are fit parameters. We find significant broadening of the pulse for ER due to delayed luminescence from the recombination process. In addition to the effective model, we fit a model describing the recombination luminescence for ER at zero field and obtain good agreement. We estimate the best performance of a combined S2/S1 and pulse shape ER/NR discrimination and show that even with 2 ns time resolution, the improvement over S2/S1 discrimination alone is marginal, so that pulse shape discrimination will likely not be useful for future dual-phase liquid xenon experiments looking for elastic dark matter recoil interactions. K: Noble liquid detectors (scintillation, ionization, double-phase); scintillators, scintillation and light emission processes (solid, gas and liquid scintillators); particle identification methods; Time Projection Chambers (TPC) A X P : 1803.07935

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Precision measurements of the scintillation pulse shape for low-energy recoils in liquid xenon

et al. 2018

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“…A liquid xenon target is afforded discrimination power between incident species by the fact that particle interactions will produce both VUV scintillation light and ionisation (electrons), in a ratio which differs for nuclear and electron recoils [11,12,13]. An important implementation of this is the use of a twophase system [14,15] in which two signals are produced for each event: from the primary scintillation light (S1); and from the use of electric fields to drift the charge to the liquid surface, from where it is extracted into a high E-field gas region to produce a second electroluminescence pulse (S2).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

First limits on WIMP nuclear recoil signals in ZEPLIN-II: A two-phase xenon detector for dark matter detection

Alner

Araújo

Bewick

et al. 2007

Astroparticle Physics

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141

113

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Results are presented from the first underground data run of ZEPLIN-II, a 31 kg two-phase xenon detector developed to observe nuclear recoils from hypothetical weakly interacting massive dark matter particles. Discrimination between nuclear recoils and background electron recoils is afforded by recording both the scintillation and ionisation signals generated within the liquid xenon, with the ratio of these signals being different for the two classes of event. This ratio is calibrated for different incident species using an AmBe neutron source and 60Co γ-ray sources. From our first 31 live days of running ZEPLIN-II, the total exposure following the application of fiducial and stability cuts was 225 kg × days. A background population of radon progeny events was observed in this run, arising from radon emission in the gas purification getters, due to radon daughter ion decays on the surfaces of the walls of the chamber. An acceptance window, defined by the neutron calibration data, of 50% nuclear recoil acceptance between 5 keVee and 20 keVee, had an observed count of 29 events, with a summed expectation of 28.6 ± 4.3 γ-ray and radon progeny induced background events. These figures provide a 90% c.l. upper limit to the number of nuclear recoils of 10.4 events in this acceptance window, which converts to a WIMP nucleon spin-independent cross-section with a minimum of 6.6 × 10-7 pb following the inclusion of an energy-dependent, calibrated, efficiency. A second run is currently underway in which the radon progeny will be eliminated, thereby removing the background population, with a projected sensitivity of 2 × 10-7 pb for similar exposures as the first run

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“…PSD has also been studied in detail for liquid xenon based experiments [1,7] and can be used to suppress gamma ray backgrounds. PSD in liquid helium has also been studied in order to separate electronic recoil events from 3 He(n,p) 3 H events in the search for the neutron electric dipole moment [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scintillation of liquid neon from electronic and nuclear recoils

Nikkel¹,

Hasty²,

Lippincott³

et al. 2008

Astroparticle Physics

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Liquid xenon as a dark matter detector. Prospects for nuclear recoil discrimination by photon timing

Cited by 41 publications

References 33 publications

Precision measurements of the scintillation pulse shape for low-energy recoils in liquid xenon

Precision measurements of the scintillation pulse shape for low-energy recoils in liquid xenon

First limits on WIMP nuclear recoil signals in ZEPLIN-II: A two-phase xenon detector for dark matter detection

Scintillation of liquid neon from electronic and nuclear recoils

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