Feasibility Study to use Neutron Capture for an Ultra-low Energy Nuclear-recoil Calibration in Liquid Xenon

Abstract

The feasibility of an ultra-low energy nuclear-recoil measurement in liquid xenon using neutron capture is investigated for a small (sub-kilogram) liquid xenon detector that is optimized for a high scintillation gain, and a pulsed neutron source. The measurement uses the recoil energies imparted to xenon nuclei during the de-excitation process following neutron capture, where promptly emitted $\gamma$ cascades can provide the nuclei with up to $0.3$ keV${}_{\text{nr}}$ of recoil energy due to conservation of momentum. A successful calibration of scintillation photon and ionization electron yields below this energy will contribute to a greater sensitivity for liquid xenon experiments in searches for light WIMPs.

15 pages, 16 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Results from a search for dark matter in the complete LUX exposure
• Results from a Search for Light-Mass Dark Matter with a P-type Point Contact Germanium Detector
• Simultaneous Measurement of Ionization and Scintillation from Nuclear Recoils in Liquid Xenon as Target for a Dark Matter Experiment
• Search for Coherent Elastic Scattering of Solar ${}^8$B Neutrinos in the XENON1T Dark Matter Experiment
• Preparation of Neutron-activated Xenon for Liquid Xenon Detector Calibration

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Detection and Calibration of Low-Energy Nuclear Recoils for Dark Matter and Neutrino Scattering Experiments
• Nuclear Recoil Calibration at Sub-keV Energies in LUX and Its Impact on Dark Matter Search Sensitivity
• Neutron capture-induced silicon nuclear recoils for dark matter and CE$\nu$NS
• Novel coincidence detection technique for precision measurement of neutron-capture-induced nuclear recoils
• Simulation results for a low energy nuclear recoil yields measurement in liquid xenon using the MiX detector