2025/11/25 by Alfonso-Pita, E., Baxter, D., Behnke, E. +32
Physics and Astronomy · #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Neutrino Physics Research #Radiation Detection and Scintillator Technologies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2511.19817
The Scintillating Bubble Chamber (SBC) Collaboration is designing a new generation of low background, noble liquid bubble chamber experiments with sub-keV nuclear recoil threshold. These experiments combine the electronic recoil blindness of a bubble chamber with the energy resolution of noble liquid scintillation, and maintain electron recoil discrimination at higher degrees of superheat (lower nuclear recoil thresholds) than Freon-based bubble chambers. A 10-kg liquid argon bubble chamber has the potential to set world leading limits on the dark matter nucleon cross-section for O(GeV/c2) masses, and to perform a high statistics coherent elastic neutrino nuclear scattering measurement with reactor neutrinos. This work presents a detailed calibration plan to measure the detector response of these experiments, combining photoneutron scattering with two new techniques to induce sub-keV nuclear recoils: nuclear Thomson scattering and thermal neutron capture.