Why would you put a flashlight in a dark matter detector?

Abstract

Silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) are solid-state, single-photon sensitive, pixelated sensors whose usage for scintillation detection has rapidly increased over the past decade. It is known that the avalanche process within the device, which renders a single photon detectable, can also generate secondary photons which may be detected by a separate device. This effect, known as external crosstalk, could potentially degrade the science goals of future xenon dark matter experiments. In this article, we measure the effect of external crosstalk in a dual-phase, liquid xenon time projection chamber fully instrumented with SiPMs. We then consider the implications for a future xenon dark matter experiment utilizing SiPMs and discuss possible solutions.

arXiv comment12 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (20)

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• First Dark Matter Search with Nuclear Recoils from the XENONnT Experiment
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• The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) Experiment
• The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Experiment
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• Suppression of the optical crosstalk in a multi-channel silicon photomultiplier array
• Performance of Hamamatsu VUV4 SiPMs for detecting liquid argon scintillation
• Characterization of VUV4 SiPM for Liquid Argon Detector
• The first dual-phase xenon TPC equipped with silicon photomultipliers and characterisation with ${}^{37}$Ar
• SiPM cross-talk in liquid argon detectors
• Characterization of SiPM Optical Crosstalk and its Dependence on the Protection-Window Thickness
• Operation and performance of a dual-phase crystalline/vapor xenon time projection chamber
• First time-resolved measurement of infrared scintillation light in gaseous xenon
• First measurement of discrimination between helium and electron recoils in liquid xenon for low-mass dark matter searches
• Challenges for dark matter direct search with SiPMs

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Direct detection of dark matter: a critical review
• First measurement of discrimination between helium and electron recoils in liquid xenon for low-mass dark matter searches
• Demonstrating a broadband Photon Detection Efficiency model on VUV sensitive Silicon Photomultipliers
• Characterization of external cross-talk from silicon photomultipliers in a liquid xenon detector
• Quartz fluorescence backgrounds in xenon particle detectors