119186611
Anisotropic diffusion of electrons in liquid xenon with application to improving the sensitivity of direct dark matter searches
Electron diffusion in a liquid xenon time projection chamber has recently been used to infer the z coordinate of a particle interaction, from the width of the electron signal. The goal of this technique is to reduce the background event rate by discriminating edge events from bulk events. Analyses of dark matter search data which employ it would benefit from increased longitudinal electron diffusion. We show that a significant increase is expected if the applied electric field is decreased. This observation is trivial to implement but runs contrary to conventional wisdom and practice. We also extract a first measurement of the longitudinal diffusion coefficient, and confirm the expectation that electron diffusion in liquid xenon is highly anisotropic under typical operating conditions.
118466778
Towards energy resolution at the statistical limit from a negative ion time projection chamber
Abstract We make a proof-of-principle demonstration that improved energy resolution can be obtained in a negative-ion time projection chamber, by individually counting each electron produced by ionizing radiation.
121037084
BACKGROUNDS AND THRESHOLD OF XENON10 DARK MATTER EXPERIMENT
56164482
Nuclear recoil energy scale in liquid xenon with application to the direct detection of dark matter
We show for the first time that the quenching of electronic excitation from nuclear recoils in liquid xenon is well-described by Lindhard theory, if the nuclear recoil energy is reconstructed using the combined (scintillation and ionization) energy scale proposed by Shutt et al.. We argue for the adoption of this perspective in favor of the existing preference for reconstructing nuclear recoil energy solely from primary scintillation. We show that signal partitioning into scintillation and ionization is well-described by the Thomas-Imel box model. We discuss the implications for liquid xenon detectors aimed at the direct detection of dark matter.
119106969
A coherent understanding of low-energy nuclear recoils in liquid xenon
Liquid xenon detectors such as XENON10 and XENON100 obtain a significant fraction of their sensitivity to light (10 GeV) particle dark matter by looking for nuclear recoils of only a few keV, just above the detector threshold. Yet in this energy regime a correct treatment of the detector threshold and resolution remains unclear. The energy dependence of the scintillation yield of liquid xenon for nuclear recoils also bears heavily on detector sensitivity, yet numerous measurements have not succeeded in obtaining concordant results. In this article we show that the ratio of detected ionization to scintillation can be leveraged to constrain the scintillation yield. We also present a rigorous treatment of liquid xenon detector threshold and energy resolution. Notably, the effective energy resolution differs significantly from a simple Poisson distribution. We conclude with a calculation of dark matter exclusion limits, and show that existing data from liquid xenon detectors strongly constrain recent interpretations of light dark matter.
126147907
The XENON dark matter search experiment
14779676
SPECTRAL FEATURES OF PRESOLAR DIAMONDS IN THE LABORATORY AND IN CARBON STAR ATMOSPHERES
Laboratory analyses on ne-grained diamond residues from primitive meteorites have shown that nano- diamonds represent the most abundant form of presolar dust preserved in meteoritic samples. The presolar diamonds carry isotopic anomalies which indicate a very complex formation history. Several groups of diamonds may exist with origin in different types of stars. In order to identify the sites of for- mation observationally, we have extracted presolar diamonds from the Allende meteorite and measured the monochromatic absorption coefcient in a form which is useful for stellar atmo- sphere calculations. The monochromatic absorption coefcient was measured in the wavelength ranges 400{4000cm 1 (2.5{ 25m) and 12200{52600cm 1 (190{820nm). We have made identical laboratory measurements on CVD diamonds as on the meteoritic diamonds, in order to get a more solid basis for the interpretationofthediamondspectrum.Themonochromaticab- sorption coefcient for the presolar diamonds was incorporated in self-consistent carbon star photospheric models. The main influence of the diamond dust in our photospheric models is a heating of the upper photospheric layers and a reduction of the C2H2 abundance. Due to the relatively small absorption coef- cientofthediamondscomparedtootherstellardustgrains,their spectral appearance is weak. However, the weak interaction of the diamonds with the radiation eld may give them an impor- tant role in the dust nucleation process. The gas pressure will stay high and the gas will be much closer to hydrostatic equilib- rium during possible diamond nucleation than is normally the case in dust forming stellar regions, and therefore allow ample time for the nucleation process.
15479457
Resonance decay effects on anisotropy parameters
We present the elliptic flow v{sub 2} of pions produced from resonance decays. The transverse momentum p{sub T} spectra of the parent particles are taken from thermal model fits and their v{sub 2} are fit under the assumption that they follow a number-of-constituent-quark (NCQ) scaling law expected from quark-coalescence models. The v{sub 2} of pions from resonance particle decays is found to be similar to the measured pion v{sub 2}. We also propose the measurement of electron v{sub 2} as a means to extract open-charm v{sub 2} and investigate whether a thermalized system of quasi-free quarks and gluons (a quark-gluon plasma) is created in collisions of Au nuclei at RHIC.
118502088
The Sound of the Little Bangs
Measurements of particles emitted from collisions of heavy ions at relativistic energies show evidence for temperature-fluctuations on the freeze-out surface of the expanding fireball. These can be understood as remnants of the density inhomogeneities in the initial collision overlap region. In this paper we present an analysis of heavy-ion collisions analogous to the analysis of the cosmic microwave background radiation. We use data on transverse momentum correlations to extract a power-spectrum from heavy-ion collisions and use a Glauber model for eccentricity to extract the transfer function needed to produce the observed correlations. We also discuss the acoustic signal, the sound that an observer inside the matter would hear.
125578392
Azimuthal anisotropy of K0(S) and Lambda + anti-Lambda production at mid-rapidity from Au + Au collisions at S(NN)**(1/2) = 130-GeV
16160539
Searching for Superhorizon Fluctuations in Heavy-Ion Collisions
In this talk I discuss novel explanations for the azimuthal correlations observed in heavy-ion collisions. I review some ideas about correlations and the evolution of heavy-ion collisions. Some aspects of the correlations observed in heavy-ion collisions may be indicitive of the suppression of super-horizon fluctuations.