2006/08/31 by T. Shutt, C. E. Dahl, J. Kwong +3 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Atomic physics #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark matter #Detector #Electron #Ionization #Nuclear physics #Optics #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Phase (matter) #Physics #Recoil #Sensitivity (control systems) #WIMP #Xenon #astro-ph #physics.ins-det
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.nima.2007.04.104
published as Nucl.Instrum.Meth.A579:451-453,2007 · 4 pages, 6 figures, submitted to DM06 conference proceedings in Nucl Phys B
arxiv created 2006/09/29 · openalex publication_date 2007/04/12 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We extend the study of the performance of a prototype two-phase liquid xenon WIMP dark matter detector to recoil energies below 20 keV. We demonstrate a new method for obtaining the best estimate of the energies of events using a calibrated sum of charge and light signals and introduce the corresponding discrimination parameter, giving its mean value at 4 kV/cm for electron and nuclear recoils up to 300 and 100 keV, respectively. We show that fluctuations in recombination limit discrimination for most energies, and reveal an improvement in discrimination below 20 keV due to a surprising increase in ionization yield for low energy electron recoils. This improvement is crucial for a high-sensitivity dark matter search.