paper

First measurement of the ionization yield of nuclear recoils in liquid argon

arXiv:1402.2037 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.171303

Abstract

This Letter details a measurement of the ionization yield ( $Q_{y}$ ) of 6.7 keV $^{40} A r$ atoms stopping in a liquid argon detector. The $Q_{y}$ of 3.6-6.3 detected $e^{-}/\mbox{keV}$, for applied electric fields in the range 240--2130 V/cm, is encouraging for the use of this detector medium to search for the signals from hypothetical dark matter particle interactions and from coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering. A significant dependence of $Q_{y}$ on the applied electric field is observed and explained in the context of ion recombination.

4 pages, 4 figures