Proposed low-energy absolute calibration of nuclear recoils in a dual-phase noble element TPC using D-D neutron scattering kinematics

Abstract

We propose a new technique for the calibration of nuclear recoils in large noble element dual-phase time projection chambers used to search for WIMP dark matter in the local galactic halo. This technique provides an $\text{in situ}$ measurement of the low-energy nuclear recoil response of the target media using the measured scattering angle between multiple neutron interactions within the detector volume. The low-energy reach and reduced systematics of this calibration have particular significance for the low-mass WIMP sensitivity of several leading dark matter experiments. Multiple strategies for improving this calibration technique are discussed, including the creation of a new type of quasi-monoenergetic 272 keV neutron source. We report results from a time-of-flight based measurement of the neutron energy spectrum produced by an Adelphi Technology, Inc. DD108 neutron generator, confirming its suitability for the proposed nuclear recoil calibration.

21 pages, 18 figures, 6 tables

References in corpus (7)

• Dark Matter Results from 225 Live Days of XENON100 Data
• First results from DAMA/LIBRA and the combined results with DAMA/NaI
• First Results from the DarkSide-50 Dark Matter Experiment at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso
• Results from the First Science Run of the ZEPLIN-III Dark Matter Search Experiment
• Measurement of Scintillation and Ionization Yield and Scintillation Pulse Shape from Nuclear Recoils in Liquid Argon
• Measurement of the ionization produced by sub-keV silicon nuclear recoils in a CCD dark matter detector
• Towards an improved understanding of the relative scintillation efficiency of nuclear recoils in liquid xenon

Cited by in corpus (12)

• First Dark Matter Search Results from the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Experiment
• Limits on spin-dependent WIMP-nucleon cross section obtained from the complete LUX exposure
• A Review of Basic Energy Reconstruction Techniques in Liquid Xenon and Argon Detectors for Dark Matter and Neutrino Physics Using NEST
• Exploring coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering using reactor electron antineutrinos in the NEON experiment
• Measuring the Migdal effect in semiconductors for dark matter detection
• Improved Measurements of the \b{eta}-Decay Response of Liquid Xenon with the LUX Detector
• Two-neutrino double electron capture of ${}^{124}$Xe in the first LUX-ZEPLIN exposure
• The Design, Implementation, and Performance of the LZ Calibration Systems
• Nuclear Recoil Calibration at Sub-keV Energies in LUX and Its Impact on Dark Matter Search Sensitivity
• A portable and high intensity 24 keV neutron source based on ${}^{124}$Sb-${}^9$Be photoneutrons and an iron filter
• Nuclear recoil response of liquid xenon and its impact on solar 8B neutrino and dark matter searches
• A novel nuclear recoil calibration for liquid noble gas detectors