Dark matter searches and energy accumulation and release in materials

Efforts to identify dark matter by detecting nuclear recoils produced by dark matter particles reveal low-energy backgrounds of unknown origin in different types of detectors. In many cases, energy accumulation and delayed burst-like releases of stored energy could provide an explanation. These dynamics follow Prigogine's ideas on systems with energy and the general Self-Organized Criticality scenario. We compare these models with properties of excess backgrounds in cryogenic solid-state detectors, relaxation processes in glasses and crystals, our observations of delayed luminescence in NaI(Tl), and make predictions for more phenomena present in these systems and in superconducting photon detectors and qubits. Experiments to create accurate phenomenological models are needed.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figure

Excess backgrounds in Dark Matter detectors and physics of glasses

In solid-state dark matter detectors, energy accumulation due to ionizing radiation should produce delayed low-energy background similar to the background produced by energy deposited by mechanical stress. The tunneling two-level systems model for glasses is missing interactions between excitation; in contrast, interactions lead to emerging phenomena in Prigogine consideration of systems with energy flow. We observed energy accumulation and delayed release as delayed luminescence in sodium iodine and delayed luminescence suppression by exposure to red light. More studies of fast and delayed luminescence are required.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur