Low energy fast events from radon progenies at the surface of a CsI(Tl) scintillator

Abstract

In searches for rare phenomena such as elastic scattering of dark matter particles or neutrinoless double beta decay, alpha decays of Rn222 progenies attached to the surfaces of the detection material have been identified as a serious source of background. In measurements with CsI(Tl) scintillator crystals, we demonstrate that alpha decays of surface contaminants produce fast signals with a characteristic mean-time distribution that is distinct from those of neutron- and gamma-induced events.

9 pages, 8 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Semi-empirical calculation of quenching factors for ions in scintillators
• Discrimination of Recoil Backgrounds in Scintillating Calorimeters

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Search for Low-Mass Dark Matter with CsI(Tl) Crystal Detectors
• Bulk NaI(Tl) scintillation low energy events selection with the ANAIS-0 module
• Limits on Interactions between Weakly Interacting Massive Particles and Nucleons Obtained with NaI(Tl) crystal Detectors
• COSINE-100 Full Dataset Challenges the Annual Modulation Signal of DAMA/LIBRA
• Measurement of low-energy background events due to ${}^{222}$Rn contamination on the surface of a NaI(Tl) crystal