Signal partitioning in superfluid ${}^4$He: a Monte Carlo approach

Abstract

Superfluid ${}^4$He is an ideal candidate for the direct detection of light dark matter via nuclear recoils thanks to its low nuclear mass and the possibility to reach a low detection energy threshold by exploiting the generated quasiparticles. The design of future detectors based on this target, such as the DELight experiment, requires a proper understanding of the formation and partitioning of the signal for different energy depositions from various sources. This work presents an overview of the physical processes involved in the energy deposition of recoiling electrons and ions, and describes a Monte Carlo approach to the partitioning of the signal into different channels. Despite an overall good agreement with existing literature, differences in the region of interest for light dark matter searches below 200 eV are observed.

Figure 12 and reference 24 updated, no change of outcome

References in corpus (10)

• First Dark Matter Search Results from the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Experiment
• Dark Matter Search Results from the PandaX-4T Commissioning Run
• First Dark Matter Search with Nuclear Recoils from the XENONnT Experiment
• Results on sub-GeV Dark Matter from a 10 eV Threshold CRESST-III Silicon Detector
• DELight: a Direct search Experiment for Light dark matter with superfluid helium
• QUEST-DMC superfluid ${}^3$He detector for sub-GeV dark matter
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• First Demonstration of the HeRALD Superfluid Helium Detector Concept
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• Observation of Crossover from Ballistic to Diffusion Regime for Excimer Molecules in Superfluid ${}^4$He