Extending light WIMP searches to single scintillation photons in LUX

Abstract

We present a novel analysis technique for liquid xenon time projection chambers that allows for a lower threshold by relying on events with a prompt scintillation signal consisting of single detected photons. The energy threshold of the LUX dark matter experiment is primarily determined by the smallest scintillation response detectable, which previously required a 2-fold coincidence signal in its photomultiplier arrays, enforced in data analysis. The technique presented here exploits the double photoelectron emission effect observed in some photomultiplier models at vacuum ultraviolet wavelengths. We demonstrate this analysis using an electron recoil calibration dataset and place new constraints on the spin-independent scattering cross section of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) down to 2.5 GeV/c${}^2$ WIMP mass using the 2013 LUX dataset. This new technique is promising to enhance light WIMP and astrophysical neutrino searches in next-generation liquid xenon experiments.

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Cited by in corpus (24)

• A Next-Generation Liquid Xenon Observatory for Dark Matter and Neutrino Physics
• Search for Coherent Elastic Scattering of Solar ${}^8$B Neutrinos in the XENON1T Dark Matter Experiment
• Calibration Strategy of the JUNO Experiment
• Investigation of background electron emission in the LUX detector
• A Review of Basic Energy Reconstruction Techniques in Liquid Xenon and Argon Detectors for Dark Matter and Neutrino Physics Using NEST
• Discrimination of electronic recoils from nuclear recoils in two-phase xenon time projection chambers
• Direct Detection of Dark Matter -- APPEC Committee Report
• Projected sensitivities of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment to new physics via low-energy electron recoils
• Dark Matter Constraints on Low Mass and Weakly Coupled B-L Gauge Boson
• Neutral Bremsstrahlung emission in xenon unveiled
• Improving sensitivity to low-mass dark matter in LUX using a novel electrode background mitigation technique
• Effective Field Theory for Dark Matter Absorption on Single Phonons
• Projected WIMP sensitivity of the CDEX-50 dark matter experiment
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• Light $Z^{\prime }$ and Dirac fermion dark matter in the $B-L$ model
• Self-consistent calculations for atomic electron capture
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• Development of Dual-phase Xenon TPC with a Quartz Chamber for Direct Dark Matter Search
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• A measurement of the mean electronic excitation energy of liquid xenon