Aluminum Relaxation as the Source of Excess Low Energy Events in Low Threshold Calorimeters

Abstract

A previously unexplained background called the Low Energy Excess (LEE) has negatively impacted the reach of a variety of low threshold calorimeters including light dark matter direct detection and coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering experiments. The relaxation of stressed aluminium films as mediated by the motion of dislocations may account for these observations.

11 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (4)

• EXCESS workshop: Descriptions of rising low-energy spectra
• Sources of Low-Energy Events in Low-Threshold Dark Matter and Neutrino Detectors
• Performance of a Large Area Photon Detector For Rare Event Search Applications
• DoubleTES detectors to investigate the CRESST low energy background: results from above-ground prototypes

Cited by in corpus (7)

• First Limits on Light Dark Matter Interactions in a Low Threshold Two Channel Athermal Phonon Detector from the TESSERACT Collaboration
• Low Energy Backgrounds and Excess Noise in a Two-Channel Low-Threshold Calorimeter
• Low-Energy Backgrounds in Solid-State Phonon and Charge Detectors
• A Transition Edge Sensor Operated in Coincidence with a High Sensitivity Athermal Phonon Sensor for Photon Coupled Rare Event Searches
• Low-Energy Calibration of SuperCDMS HVeV Cryogenic Silicon Calorimeters Using Compton Steps
• Spontaneous generation of athermal phonon bursts within bulk silicon causing excess noise, low energy background events and quasiparticle poisoning in superconducting sensors
• Spontaneous damage annealing reactions as a possible source of low energy excess in semiconductor detectors