Low-energy (0.7-74 keV) nuclear recoil calibration of the LUX dark matter experiment using D-D neutron scattering kinematics

Abstract

The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment is a dual-phase liquid xenon time projection chamber (TPC) operating at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota. A calibration of nuclear recoils in liquid xenon was performed $\text{in situ}$ in the LUX detector using a collimated beam of mono-energetic 2.45 MeV neutrons produced by a deuterium-deuterium (D-D) fusion source. The nuclear recoil energy from the first neutron scatter in the TPC was reconstructed using the measured scattering angle defined by double-scatter neutron events within the active xenon volume. We measured the absolute charge ($Q_y$) and light ($L_y$) yields at an average electric field of 180 V/cm for nuclear recoil energies spanning 0.7 to 74 keV and 1.1 to 74 keV, respectively. This calibration of the nuclear recoil signal yields will permit the further refinement of liquid xenon nuclear recoil signal models and, importantly for dark matter searches, clearly demonstrates measured ionization and scintillation signals in this medium at recoil energies down to $\mathcal{O}$(1 keV).

24 pages, 15 figures, 6 tables

Cited by in corpus (27)

• Results from a search for dark matter in the complete LUX exposure
• 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
• The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Experiment
• Search for Coherent Elastic Scattering of Solar ${}^8$B Neutrinos in the XENON1T Dark Matter Experiment
• XENON1T Dark Matter Data Analysis: Signal & Background Models, and Statistical Inference
• Confirming $U(1{)}_{L_{\mu }-L_{\tau }}$ as a solution for $(g-2{)}_{\mu }$ with neutrinos
• A Review of Basic Energy Reconstruction Techniques in Liquid Xenon and Argon Detectors for Dark Matter and Neutrino Physics Using NEST
• Signal yields, energy resolution, and recombination fluctuations in liquid xenon
• Discrimination of electronic recoils from nuclear recoils in two-phase xenon time projection chambers
• ${}^{83\text{m}}$Kr calibration of the 2013 LUX dark matter search
• Direct Detection of Dark Matter -- APPEC Committee Report
• Exploring the dark matter inelastic frontier with 79.6 days of PandaX-II data
• A Review of NEST Models for Liquid Xenon and Exhaustive Comparison to Other Approaches
• Determination of responses of liquid xenon to low energy electron and nuclear recoils using the PandaX-II detector
• Improved Measurements of the \b{eta}-Decay Response of Liquid Xenon with the LUX Detector
• Constraints on Effective Field Theory Couplings Using 311.2 days of LUX Data
• Neutrino Backgrounds in Future Liquid Noble Element Dark Matter Direct Detection Experiments
• Horizontal Position Reconstruction in PandaX-II
• An Effective Field Theory Analysis of the First LUX Dark Matter Search
• The Design, Implementation, and Performance of the LZ Calibration Systems
• Detection and Calibration of Low-Energy Nuclear Recoils for Dark Matter and Neutrino Scattering Experiments
• Neutron-induced nuclear recoil background in the PandaX-4T experiment
• Complementarity of direct detection experiments in search of light Dark Matter
• A portable and high intensity 24 keV neutron source based on ${}^{124}$Sb-${}^9$Be photoneutrons and an iron filter
• Revised performance parameters of the ZEPLIN-III dark matter experiment
• Light yield and field dependence measurement in PandaX-II dual-phase xenon detector