Cryogenic detectors have a long history of success in the field of rare event searches. In particular scintillating calorimeters are very suitable detectors for this task since they provide particle discrimination: the simultaneous detection of the thermal and the light signal produced by a particle interaction in scintillating crystals allows to identify the nature of particle, as the light yield depends thereon. We investigate the performance of two large CsI (undoped) crystals (∼122 g each) operated as scintillating calorimeters at milli-Kelvin temperatures in terms of calorimetric properties and background rejection capabilities. Furthermore, we discuss the feasibility of this detection approach towards a background-free future dark matter experiment based on alkali halides crystals, with active particle discrimination via the two-channel detection.
@article{arxiv.1602.08884,
title = {A CsI low temperature detector for dark matter search},
author = {G. Angloher and I. Dafinei and A. Gektin and L. Gironi and C. Gotti and A. Gütlein and D. Hauff and M. Maino and S. S. Nagorny and S. Nisi and L. Pagnanini and L. Pattavina and G. Pessina and F. Petricca and S. Pirro and F. Pröbst and F. Reindl and K. Schäffner and J. Schieck and W. Seidel and S. Vasyukov},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1602.08884},
year = {2016}
}