Relative Measurement and Extrapolation of the Scintillation Quenching Factor of $\alpha$-Particles in Liquid Argon using DEAP-3600 Data

Abstract

The knowledge of scintillation quenching of $\alpha$-particles plays a paramount role in understanding $\alpha$-induced backgrounds and improving the sensitivity of liquid argon-based direct detection of dark matter experiments. We performed a relative measurement of scintillation quenching in the MeV energy region using radioactive isotopes (${}^{222}$Rn, ${}^{218}$Po and ${}^{214}$Po isotopes) present in trace amounts in the DEAP-3600 detector and quantified the uncertainty of extrapolating the quenching factor to the low-energy region.

9 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Measurement of Scintillation and Ionization Yield and Scintillation Pulse Shape from Nuclear Recoils in Liquid Argon
• A Model of Nuclear Recoil Scintillation Efficiency in Noble Liquids
• Pulseshape discrimination against low-energy Ar-39 beta decays in liquid argon with 4.5 tonne-years of DEAP-3600 data
• Study of nuclear recoils in liquid argon with monoenergetic neutrons

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Demonstration of the light collection stability of a PEN-based wavelength shifting reflector in a tonne scale liquid argon detector