Akerib, DS;
Alsum, S;
Araujo, HM;
Bai, X;
Bailey, AJ;
Balajthy, J;
Beltrame, P;
... Zhang, C; + view all
(2018)
Liquid xenon scintillation measurements and pulse shape discrimination in the LUX dark matter detector.
Physical Review D
, 97
(11)
, Article 112002. 10.1103/PhysRevD.97.112002.
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Abstract
Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are a leading candidate for dark matter and are expected to produce nuclear recoil (NR) events within liquid xenon time-projection chambers. We present a measurement of the scintillation timing characteristics of liquid xenon in the LUX dark matter detector and develop a pulse shape discriminant to be used for particle identification. To accurately measure the timing characteristics, we develop a template-fitting method to reconstruct the detection times of photons. Analyzing calibration data collected during the 2013–2016 LUX WIMP search, we provide a new measurement of the singlet-to-triplet scintillation ratio for electron recoils (ER) below 46 keV, and we make, to our knowledge, a first-ever measurement of the NR singlet-to-triplet ratio at recoil energies below 74 keV. We exploit the difference of the photon time spectra for NR and ER events by using a prompt fraction discrimination parameter, which is optimized using calibration data to have the least number of ER events that occur in a 50% NR acceptance region. We then demonstrate how this discriminant can be used in conjunction with the charge-to-light discrimination to possibly improve the signal-to-noise ratio for nuclear recoils.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Liquid xenon scintillation measurements and pulse shape discrimination in the LUX dark matter detector |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1103/PhysRevD.97.112002 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.97.112002 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This is the published version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Physics and Astronomy |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10053990 |
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