Low Energy Phonon Bursts Created By Fast Neutron Damage
Abstract
Solid state athermal phonon calorimeters used in the search for low mass dark matter or coherent neutrino-nucleus interactions have long observed a large excess of events below several hundred eV. The relaxation of damage created by the interaction of fast cosmic ray neutrons with the detector has been proposed as a source of these excess events. By comparing neutron exposed detectors to control detectors, we report the first measurement of phonon bursts caused by damage created by fast neutrons. Differences in the spectral shape, the rate dependence on thermal history, and the observed spectral rate scaled to the neutron exposure between irradiated and control detectors suggest that our observed LEE backgrounds are not dominated by neutron damage-induced phonon bursts.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.17964,
title = {Low Energy Phonon Bursts Created By Fast Neutron Damage},
author = {A. Armatol and C. Augier and L. Bergé and J. Billard and H. J. Birch and J. Blé and C. L. Chang and Y. -Y. Chang and L. Chaplinsky and G. Cline and A. Cochard and I. Cojocari and J. Colas and M. De Jesus and P. de Marcillac and K. Dwinger and R. Faure and S. Fiorucci and M. Garcia-Sciveres and J. Gascon and C. Girard-Carillo and W. Guo and L. Haegel and S. J. Haselschwardt and S. A. Hertel and K. Hunter and L. Juigne and A. Juillard and A. Kavner and J. Lamblin and T. Le-Bellec and X. Li and J. Lin and R. Mahapatra and S. Marnieros and C. Marrache and N. Martini and W. Matava and D. N. McKinsey and J. Menu and K. Moraa and V. Novati and E. Olivieri and B. Penning and M. Platt and M. Pyle and D. Poda and Y. Qi and M. Reed and R. K. Romani and I. Rydstrom and B. Sadoulet and S. Scorza and B. Serfass and P. Sorensen and S. Steinfeld and H. Su and A. Suzuki and R. L. Vaughn and C. Veihmeyer and V. Velan and G. Wang and P. Vittaz and Y. Wang and M. R. Williams and J. Wuko and K. E. J. Myers and L. Bernstein and M. Potts and J. Orrell},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.17964},
year = {2026}
}