Study of the ionization efficiency for nuclear recoils in pure crystals

Abstract

We study the basic integral equation in Lindhard's theory describing the energy given to atomic motion by nuclear recoils in a pure material when the atomic binding energy is taken into account. The numerical solution, which depends only on the slope of the velocity-proportional electronic stopping power and the binding energy, leads to an estimation of the ionization efficiency which is in good agreement with the available experimental measurements for Si and Ge. In this model, the quenching factor for nuclear recoils features a cut-off at an energy equal to twice the assumed binding energy. We argue that the model is a reasonable approximation for Ge even for energies close to the cutoff, while for Si is valid up to recoil energies greater than ~500 eV.

arXiv comment10 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (13)

• Results from a Search for Light-Mass Dark Matter with a P-type Point Contact Germanium Detector
• CoGeNT: A Search for Low-Mass Dark Matter using p-type Point Contact Germanium Detectors
• Projected Sensitivity of the SuperCDMS SNOLAB experiment
• Large-Mass Ultra-Low Noise Germanium Detectors: Performance and Applications in Neutrino and Astroparticle Physics
• Search for low-mass WIMPs in a 0.6 kg day exposure of the DAMIC experiment at SNOLAB
• Search for Low-Mass Dark Matter with CDMSlite Using a Profile Likelihood Fit
• Exploring low-energy neutrino physics with the Coherent Neutrino Nucleus Interaction Experiment (CONNIE)
• Measurement of the ionization produced by sub-keV silicon nuclear recoils in a CCD dark matter detector
• DAMIC-M Experiment: Thick, Silicon CCDs to search for Light Dark Matter
• Neutron-induced background in the CONUS experiment
• Measurement of the low-energy quenching factor in germanium using an ${}^{88}$Y/Be photoneutron source
• Atomic limits in the search for galactic dark matter
• A measurement of the ionization efficiency of nuclear recoils in silicon

Cited by in corpus (18)

• Germanium response to sub-keV nuclear recoils: a multipronged experimental characterization
• Direct measurement of the ionization quenching factor of nuclear recoils in germanium in the keV energy range
• A Review of Basic Energy Reconstruction Techniques in Liquid Xenon and Argon Detectors for Dark Matter and Neutrino Physics Using NEST
• Search for coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering at a nuclear reactor with CONNIE 2019 data
• Detecting Beyond the Standard Model Interactions of Solar Neutrinos in Low-Threshold Dark Matter Detectors
• Dark matter detectors as a novel probe for light new physics
• The physics potential of a reactor neutrino experiment with Skipper-CCDs: Searching for new physics with light mediators
• Measuring the Migdal effect in semiconductors for dark matter detection
• First measurement of the nuclear-recoil ionization yield in silicon at 100 eV
• A Review of NEST Models for Liquid Xenon and Exhaustive Comparison to Other Approaches
• Ionisation quenching factors from W-values in pure gases for rare event searches
• Low-energy reactor neutrino physics with the CONNIE experiment
• Ionization efficiency for nuclear recoils in silicon from $\sim 50$ eV to $3$ MeV
• Detection and Calibration of Low-Energy Nuclear Recoils for Dark Matter and Neutrino Scattering Experiments
• Lindhard integral equation with binding energy applied to light and charge yields of nuclear recoils in noble liquid detectors
• Complementarity of direct detection experiments in search of light Dark Matter
• Nuclear and electron scattering by neutrinos and dark matter in condensed systems
• Molecular Dynamics Simulations on Nuclear Recoils in Silicon Crystals towards Single Electron-Hole Pair Ionization Yields