Field dependence of electronic recoil signals in a dual-phase liquid xenon time projection chamber

We present measurements of light and charge signals in a dual-phase time projection chamber at electric fields varying from 10 V/cm up to 500 V/cm and at zero field using 511 keV gamma rays from a $^{22}$Na source. We determine the drift velocity, electron lifetime, diffusion constant, and light and charge yields at 511 keV as a function of the electric field. In addition, we fit the scintillation pulse shape to an effective exponential model, showing a decay time of 43.5 ns at low field that decreases to 25 ns at high fields.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure

Vertex reconstruction algorithms in the PHOBOS experiment at RHIC

The PHOBOS experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory is studying interactions of heavy nuclei at the largest energies available in the laboratory. The high multiplicity of particles created in heavy ion collisions makes precise vertex reconstruction possible using information from a spectrometer and a specialized vertex detector with relatively small acceptances. For lower multiplicity events, a large acceptance, single layer multiplicity detector is used and special algorithms are developed to reconstruct the vertex, resulting in high efficiency at the expense of poorer resolution. The algorithms used in the PHOBOS experiment and their performance are presented.Comment: presented at the Workshop on Tracking In high Multiplicity Environments, TIME0

Symmetry energy dependence of light fragment production in heavy-ion collisions

The pre-equilibrium light cluster emission in low to intermediate energy heavy ion collisions is a way to obtain information about the density and momentum dependence of the nuclear symmetry potential, i.e. about the stiffness of the symmetry energy and the neutron-proton effective mass splitting. We study the n/p and t/3He ratios as a function of the energy of the emitted particles and find that these allow to disentangle these two aspects of the symmetry energy. The t/3He ratios are found to carry similar information as the n/p ratios, making this a promising option for experimental investigations. More n-rich systems enhance the sensitivity to the symmetry energy, while double ratios between n-rich and n-poor systems tend to reduce it

Neutrino CP violating parameters from nontrivial quark-lepton correlation: a S3xGUT model

We investigate the prediction on the lepton phases in theories with a non trivial correlation between quark (CKM) and lepton (PMNS) mixing matrices. We show that the actual evidence, under the only assumption that the correlation matrix $V^M$ product of $CKM$ and $PMNS$ has a zero in the entry $(1,3)$, gives us a prediction for the three CP-violating invariants $J$, $S_1$, and $S_2$. A better determination of the lepton mixing angles will give a strong prediction of the CP-violating invariants in the lepton sector. These will be tested in the next generation experiments. To clarify how our prediction works, we show how a model based on a Grand Unified Theory and the permutation flavor symmetry $S_3$ predicts $V^M_{13}=0$.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures. V2: new figure adde

Monte Carlo Simulation Variance Reduction Techniques for Photon Transport in Liquid Xenon Detectors

Monte Carlo simulations are a crucial tool for the analysis and prediction of various background components in liquid xenon (LXe) detectors. With improving shielding in new experiments, the simulation of external backgrounds, such as induced by gamma rays from detector materials, gets more computationally expensive. We introduce and validate an accelerated Monte Carlo simulation technique for photon transport in liquid xenon detectors. The method simulates photon-induced interactions within a defined geometry and energy range with high statistics while interactions outside of the region of interest are not simulated directly but are taken into account by means of probability weights. For a simulation of gamma induced backgrounds in an exemplary detector geometry we achieve a three orders of magnitude acceleration compared to a standard simulation of a current ton-scale LXe dark matter experiment

Complementarity of direct detection experiments in search of light Dark Matter

Dark Matter experiments searching for Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) primarily use nuclear recoils (NRs) in their attempt to detect WIMPs. Migdal-induced electronic recoils (ERs) provide additional sensitivity to light Dark Matter with $\mathcal{O}(\text{GeV}/c^2)$ masses. In this work, we use Bayesian inference to find the parameter space where future detectors like XENONnT and SuperCDMS SNOLAB will be able to detect WIMP Dark Matter through NRs, Migdal-induced ERs or a combination thereof. We identify regions where each detector is best at constraining the Dark Matter mass and spin independent cross-section and infer where two or more detection configurations are complementary to constraining these Dark Matter parameters through a combined analysis.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure

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

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

Flux profile scanners for scattered high-energy electrons

The paper describes the design and performance of flux integrating Cherenkov scanners with air-core reflecting light guides used in a high-energy, high-flux electron scattering experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. The scanners were highly radiation resistant and provided a good signal to background ratio leading to very good spatial resolution of the scattered electron flux profile scans.Comment: 22 pages, 17 figure

GridPix application to dual phase TPC

GridPix is a gas-filled detector with an aluminium mesh stretched 50 μm above the Timepix CMOS pixel chip. This defines a high electric field where gas amplification occurs. A feasibility study is ongoing at Nikhef for the application of the GridPix technology as a charge sensitive device in a dual phase noble gas Time Projection Chamber (TPC), within the framework of the DARWIN design study for next generation dark matter experiments. The smallness of the device and well defined materials allow for high radio-purity and low outgassing. The high granularity of a pixel readout and the high detection efficiency of single electrons of GridPix bring benefits especially in terms of energy resolution for small energy deposits. This feature is interesting also for the measurement of the scintillation yield and the ionisation yield of noble liquids. The accurate measurements of such quantities have a direct impact on the data interpretation of dark matter experiments. The application in dual phase argon or xenon TPCs implies several technological challenges, such as the survival of the device at cryogenic temperature as well as the operation in a pure noble gas atmosphere without discharges. We describe here the recent developments of the project