GeMSE: A new Low-Background Facility for Meteorite and Material Screening

We are currently setting up a facility for low-background gamma-ray spectrometry based on a HPGe detector. It is dedicated to material screening for the XENON and DARWIN dark matter projects as well as to the characterization of meteorites. The detector will be installed in a medium depth ($\sim$620 m.w.e.) underground laboratory in Switzerland with several layers of shielding and an active muon-veto. The GeMSE facility will be operational by fall 2015 with an expected background rate of $\sim$250 counts/day (100-2700 keV).Comment: The following article appeared in AIP Conf. Proc. 1672, 120004 (2015) and may be found at http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/proceeding/aipcp/10.1063/1.4928010. The muon spectrum in Figure 4 (left) was corrected due to a bug in the code. After correction the muon flux is reduced by a factor of about

Solar and Atmospheric Neutrinos: Background Sources for the Direct Dark Matter Searches

In experiments for direct dark matter searches, neutrinos coherently scattering off nuclei can produce similar events as Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). The calculated count rate for solar neutrinos in such experiments is a few events per ton-year. This count rate strongly depends on the nuclear recoil energy threshold achieved in the experiments for the WIMP search. We show that solar neutrinos can be a serious background source for direct dark matter search experiments using Ge, Ar, Xe and CaWO_4 as target materials. To reach sensitivities better than approximatly 10^-10 pb for the elastic WIMP nucleon spin-independent cross section in the zero-background limit, energy thresholds for nuclear recoils should be approximatly >2.05 keV for CaWO_4, >4.91 keV for Ge, >2.89 keV for Xe, and >8.62 keV for Ar as target material. Next-generation experiments should not only strive for a reduction of the present energy thresholds but mainly focus on an increase of the target mass. Atmospheric neutrinos limit the achievable sensitivity for the background-free direct dark matter search to approximatly >10^-12 pb.Comment: accepted by Astroparticle Physic

Results from 730 kg days of the CRESST-II Dark Matter Search

The CRESST-II cryogenic Dark Matter search, aiming at detection of WIMPs via elastic scattering off nuclei in CaWO$_4$ crystals, completed 730 kg days of data taking in 2011. We present the data collected with eight detector modules, each with a two-channel readout; one for a phonon signal and the other for coincidently produced scintillation light. The former provides a precise measure of the energy deposited by an interaction, and the ratio of scintillation light to deposited energy can be used to discriminate different types of interacting particles and thus to distinguish possible signal events from the dominant backgrounds. Sixty-seven events are found in the acceptance region where a WIMP signal in the form of low energy nuclear recoils would be expected. We estimate background contributions to this observation from four sources: 1) "leakage" from the e/\gamma-band 2) "leakage" from the \alpha-particle band 3) neutrons and 4) Pb-206 recoils from Po-210 decay. Using a maximum likelihood analysis, we find, at a high statistical significance, that these sources alone are not sufficient to explain the data. The addition of a signal due to scattering of relatively light WIMPs could account for this discrepancy, and we determine the associated WIMP parameters.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figure

Spin Flipping and Polarization Lifetimes of a 270 MeV Deuteron Beam

We recently studied the spin flipping of a 270 MeV vertically polarized deuteron beam stored in the IUCF Cooler Ring. We swept an rf solenoid’s frequency through an rf‐induced spin resonance and observed the effect on the beam’s vector and tensor polarizations. After optimizing the resonance crossing rate and setting the solenoid’s voltage to its maximum value, we obtained a spin‐flip efficiency of about 94 ± 1% for the vector polarization; we also observed a partial spin‐flip of the tensor polarization. We then used the rf‐induced resonance to measure the vector and tensor polarizations’ lifetimes at different distances from the resonance; the polarization lifetime ratio τvector/τtensor was about 1.9 ± 0.4. © 2003 American Institute of PhysicsPeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87679/2/766_1.pd

99.9% Spin‐Flip Efficiency in the Presence of a Strong Siberian Snake

We recently studied the spin‐flipping efficiency of an rf‐dipole magnet using a 120‐MeV horizontally polarized proton beam stored in the Indiana University Cyclotron Facility Cooler Ring, which contained a full Siberian snake. We flipped the spin by ramping the rf dipole’s frequency through an rf‐induced depolarizing resonance. By adiabatically turning on the rf dipole, we minimized the beam loss, while preserving almost all of the beam’s polarization. After optimizing the frequency ramp parameters, we used up to 400 multiple spin flips to measure a spin‐flip efficiency of 99.93 ± 0.02%. This result indicates that spin flipping should be possible in very‐high‐energy polarized storage rings, where Siberian snakes are certainly needed and only dipole rf‐flipper magnets are practical. © 2003 American Institute of PhysicsPeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87684/2/776_1.pd

Spin-flipping with an rf-dipole and a full Siberian snake

We recently used a vertical-field rf-dipole magnet to study the spin-flipping of a 120 MeV horizontally polarized proton beam stored in the presence of a nearly-full Siberian snake in the IUCF Cooler Ring. The spin was flipped by ramping the rf-dipole’s frequency through an rf-induced depolarizing resonance. After optimizing the frequency ramp parameters, we used multiple spin-flips to measure a maximum spin-flip efficiency of 86.5±0.5%86.5±0.5% in April 2000, and 92.5±0.5%92.5±0.5% in June 2000. The spin-flip efficiency was apparently limited by the maximum achievable current in the rf-dipole. This result indicates that spin-flipping a stored polarized proton beam should be possible in high energy rings such as RHIC (and perhaps HERA in the future), where Siberian snakes are utilized and the dipole rf-flipper-magnets should be quite practical. During the June 2000 run, a new faster technique of locating the rf depolarizing resonance frequency was developed. © 2001 American Institute of Physics.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87739/2/736_1.pd

Energy-dependent light quenching in CaWO4 crystals at mK temperatures

Scintillating CaWO4 single crystals are a promising multi-element target for rare-event searches and are currently used in the direct dark matter experiment CRESST (Cryogenic Rare Event Search with Superconducting Thermometers). The relative light output of different particle interactions in CaWO4 is quantified by quenching factors (QFs). These are essential for an active background discrimination and the identification of a possible signal induced by weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). We present the first precise measurements of the QFs of O, Ca and W at mK temperatures by irradiating a cryogenic detector with a fast neutron beam. A clear energy dependence of the QF of O and, less pronounced, of Ca was observed for the first time. Furthermore, in CRESST neutron-calibration data a variation of the QFs among different CaWO4 single crystals was found. For typical CRESS

Experimental investigation of transverse spin asymmetries in muon-p SIDIS processes: Collins asymmetries

The COMPASS Collaboration at CERN has measured the transverse spin azimuthal asymmetry of charged hadrons produced in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering using a 160 GeV positive muon beam and a transversely polarised NH_3 target. The Collins asymmetry of the proton was extracted in the Bjorken x range 0.003<x<0.7. These new measurements confirm with higher accuracy previous measurements from the COMPASS and HERMES collaborations, which exhibit a definite effect in the valence quark region. The asymmetries for negative and positive hadrons are similar in magnitude and opposite in sign. They are compatible with model calculations in which the u-quark transversity is opposite in sign and somewhat larger than the d-quark transversity distribution function. The asymmetry is extracted as a function of Bjorken $x$, the relative hadron energy $z$ and the hadron transverse momentum p_T^h. The high statistics and quality of the data also allow for more detailed investigations of the dependence on the kinematic variables. These studies confirm the leading-twist nature of the Collins asymmetry.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure