Study of few-electron backgrounds in the LUX-ZEPLIN detector
Abstract
The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment aims to detect rare interactions between dark matter particles and xenon. Although the detector is designed to be the most sensitive to GeV/--TeV/ Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), it is also capable of measuring low-energy ionization signals down to a single electron that may be produced by scatters of sub-GeV/ dark matter. The major challenge in exploiting this sensitivity is to understand and suppress the ionization background in the few-electron regime. We report a characterization of the delayed electron backgrounds following energy depositions in the LZ detector under different detector conditions. In addition, we quantify the probability for photons to be emitted in coincidence with electron emission from the high voltage grids. We then demonstrate that spontaneous grid electron emission can be identified and rejected with a high efficiency using a coincident photon tag, which provides a tool to improve the sensitivity of future dark matter searches.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2510.06500,
title = {Study of few-electron backgrounds in the LUX-ZEPLIN detector},
author = {D. S. Akerib and A. K. Al Musalhi and F. Alder and B. J. Almquist and C. S. Amarasinghe and A. Ames and T. J. Anderson and N. Angelides and H. M. Araújo and J. E. Armstrong and M. Arthurs and A. Baker and S. Balashov and J. Bang and J. W. Bargemann and E. E. Barillier and K. Beattie and T. Benson and A. Bhatti and T. P. Biesiadzinski and H. J. Birch and E. Bishop and G. M. Blockinger and B. Boxer and C. A. J. Brew and P. Brás and S. Burdin and M. C. Carmona-Benitez and M. Carter and A. Chawla and H. Chen and Y. T. Chin and N. I. Chott and S. Contreras and M. V. Converse and R. Coronel and A. Cottle and G. Cox and D. Curran and C. E. Dahl and I. Darlington and S. Dave and A. David and J. Delgaudio and S. Dey and L. de Viveiros and L. Di Felice and C. Ding and J. E. Y. Dobson and E. Druszkiewicz and S. Dubey and C. L. Dunbar and S. R. Eriksen and A. Fan and N. M. Fearon and N. Fieldhouse and S. Fiorucci and H. Flaecher and E. D. Fraser and T. M. A. Fruth and R. J. Gaitskell and A. Geffre and J. Genovesi and C. Ghag and A. Ghosh and S. Ghosh and R. Gibbons and S. Gokhale and J. Green and M. G. D. van der Grinten and J. J. Haiston and C. R. Hall and T. Hall and S. J. Haselschwardt and M. A. Hernandez and S. A. Hertel and G. J. Homenides and M. Horn and D. Q. Huang and D. Hunt and E. Jacquet and R. S. James and K. Jenkins and A. C. Kaboth and A. C. Kamaha and M. K. Kannichankandy and D. Khaitan and A. Khazov and J. Kim and Y. D. Kim and J. Kingston and D. Kodroff and E. V. Korolkova and H. Kraus and S. Kravitz and L. Kreczko and V. A. Kudryavtsev and C. Lawes and D. S. Leonard and K. T. Lesko and C. Levy and J. Lin and A. Lindote and W. H. Lippincott and J. Long and M. I. Lopes and W. Lorenzon and C. Lu and S. Luitz and P. A. Majewski and A. Manalaysay and R. L. Mannino and C. Maupin and M. E. McCarthy and D. N. McKinsey and J. McLaughlin and J. B. McLaughlin and R. McMonigle and B. Mitra and E. Mizrachi and M. E. Monzani and E. Morrison and B. J. Mount and M. Murdy and A. St. J. Murphy and H. N. Nelson and F. Neves and A. Nguyen and C. L. O'Brien and F. H. O'Shea and I. Olcina and K. C. Oliver-Mallory and J. Orpwood and K. Y Oyulmaz and K. J. Palladino and N. J. Pannifer and N. Parveen and S. J. Patton and B. Penning and G. Pereira and E. Perry and T. Pershing and A. Piepke and S. S. Poudel and Y. Qie and J. Reichenbacher and C. A. Rhyne and G. R. C. Rischbieter and E. Ritchey and H. S. Riyat and R. Rosero and T. Rushton and D. Rynders and S. Saltão and D. Santone and A. B. M. R. Sazzad and R. W. Schnee and G. Sehr and B. Shafer and S. Shaw and K. Shi and T. Shutt and C. Silva and G. Sinev and J. Siniscalco and A. M. Slivar and R. Smith and V. N. Solovov and P. Sorensen and J. Soria and A. Stevens and T. J. Sumner and A. Swain and M. Szydagis and D. R. Tiedt and M. Timalsina and Z. Tong and D. R. Tovey and J. Tranter and M. Trask and K. Trengove and M. Tripathi and A. Usón and A. C. Vaitkus and O. Valentino and V. Velan and A. Wang and J. J. Wang and Y. Wang and L. Weeldreyer and T. J. Whitis and K. Wild and M. Williams and J. Winnicki and L. Wolf and F. L. H. Wolfs and S. Woodford and D. Woodward and C. J. Wright and Q. Xia and J. Xu and Y. Xu and M. Yeh and D. Yeum and W. Zha and H. Zhang and T. Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.06500},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
13 pages, 9 figures