Scintillation of Liquid Helium for Low-Energy Nuclear Recoils

Abstract

The scintillation properties of liquid helium upon the recoil of a low energy helium atom are discussed in the context of the possible use of this medium as a detector of dark matter. It is found that the prompt scintillation yield in the range of recoil energies from a few keV to 100 keV is somewhat higher than that obtained by a linear extrapolation from the measured yield for an 5 MeV alpha particle. A comparison is made of both the scintillation yield and the charge separation by an electric field for nuclear recoils and for electrons stopped in helium.

arXiv commentTo appear in Phys. Rev. C

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• Signatures and Detection Prospects for sub-GeV Dark Matter with Superfluid Helium
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• Molecular Tagging Velocimetry in Superfluid Helium-4: Progress, Issues, and Future Development
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