Germanium response to sub-keV nuclear recoils: a multipronged experimental characterization
Nuclear Experiment
2021-06-30 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
High Energy Physics - Experiment
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Abstract
Germanium is the detector material of choice in many rare-event searches looking for low-energy nuclear recoils induced by dark matter particles or neutrinos. We perform a systematic exploration of its quenching factor for sub-keV nuclear recoils, using multiple techniques: photo-neutron sources, recoils from gamma-emission following thermal neutron capture, and a monochromatic filtered neutron beam. Our results point to a marked deviation from the predictions of the Lindhard model in this mostly unexplored energy range. We comment on the compatibility of our data with low-energy processes such as the Migdal effect, and on the impact of our measurements on upcoming searches.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2102.10089,
title = {Germanium response to sub-keV nuclear recoils: a multipronged experimental characterization},
author = {J. I. Collar and A. R. L. Kavner and C. M. Lewis},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.10089},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
10 pages, 10 figures