Quenching factor measurements of sodium nuclear recoils in NaI:Tl determined by spectrum fitting

Abstract

We have performed measurements of sodium nuclear recoils in NaI:Tl crystals, following scattering by neutrons produced in a ${}^7$Li(p,n)${}^7$Be reaction. Understanding the light output from such recoils, which is reduced relative to electrons of equivalent energy by the quenching factor, is critical to interpret dark matter experiments that search for nuclear scattering interactions. We have developed a spectrum-fitting methodology to extract the quenching factor from our measurements, and report quenching factors for nuclear recoil energies between 36 and 401 keV. Our results agree with other recent quenching factor measurements that use quasi-monoenergetic neutron sources. The new method will be applied in the future to the NaI:Tl crystals used in the SABRE experiment.

References in corpus (4)

• First results on dark matter annual modulation from ANAIS-112 experiment
• Light WIMP Searches: The Effect of the Uncertainty in Recoil Energy Scale and Quenching Factor
• SABRE and the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory: Dark Matter Research at the Australian National University
• A study of the NaI(Tl) detector response to low energy nuclear recoils and a measurement of the quenching factor in NaI(Tl)

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Annual modulation results from three-year exposure of ANAIS-112
• Improving ANAIS-112 sensitivity to DAMA/LIBRA signal with machine learning techniques
• Quenching Factor consistency across several NaI(Tl) crystals
• Simulation and background characterisation of the SABRE South experiment
• Combined Annual Modulation Dark Matter Search with COSINE-100 and ANAIS-112
• Waveform Simulation for Scintillation Characteristics of NaI(Tl) Crystal
• The SABRE South Technical Design Report Executive Summary
• Influence of NaI background and mass on testing the DAMA modulation
• Pulse Shape Discrimination of low-energy nuclear and electron recoils for improved particle identification in NaI:Tl