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457 results on '"Arnquist, I. J."'

1. Final Results of the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR's Search for Double-Beta Decay of $^{76}$Ge to Excited States of $^{76}$Se

Author

Arnquist, I. J., Avignone III, F. T., Barabash, A. S., Blalock, E., Bos, B., Busch, M., Chan, Y. -D., Chapman, J. R., Christofferson, C. D., Chu, P. -H., Cuesta, C., Detwiler, J. A., Efremenko, Yu., Ejiri, H., Elliott, S. R., Fuad, N., Giovanetti, G. K., Green, M. P., Gruszko, J., Guinn, I. S., Guiseppe, V. E., Haufe, C. R., Henning, R., Aguilar, D. Hervas, Hoppe, E. W., Kim, I., Kouzes, R. T., Lannen V, T. E., Li, A., Massarczyk, R., Meijer, S. J., Oli, T. K., Paudel, L. S., Pettus, W., Poon, A. W. P., Radford, D. C., Reine, A. L., Rielage, K., Schaper, D. C., Schleich, S. J., Tedeschi, D., Varner, R. L., Vasilyev, S., Watkins, S. L., Wilkerson, J. F., Wiseman, C., Yu, C. -H., and Zhu, B. X.

Subjects
Nuclear Experiment
Abstract

$^{76}$Ge can $\beta\beta$ decay into three possible excited states of $^{76}$Se, with the emission of two or, if the neutrino is Majorana, zero neutrinos. None of these six transitions have yet been observed. The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR was designed to study $\beta\beta$ decay of $^{76}$Ge using a low background array of high purity germanium detectors. With 98.2 kg-y of isotopic exposure, the DEMONSTRATOR sets the strongest half-life limits to date for all six transition modes. For $2\nu\beta\beta$ to the $0^+_1$ state of $^{76}$Se, this search has begun to probe for the first time half-life values predicted using modern many-body nuclear theory techniques, setting a limit of $T_{1/2}>1.5\times10^{24}$ y (90% CL)., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures

Published
2024

2. An assay-based background projection for the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR using Monte Carlo Uncertainty Propagation

Author

Arnquist, I. J., Avignone III, F. T., Barabash, A. S., Barton, C. J., Bhimani, K. H., Blalock, E., Bos, B., Busch, M., Caldwell, T. S., Chan, Y. -D., Christofferson, C. D., Chu, P. -H., Clark, M. L., Cuesta, C., Detwiler, J. A., Efremenko, Yu., Ejiri, H., Elliott, S. R., Fuad, N., Giovanetti, G. K., Green, M. P., Gruszko, J., Guinn, I. S., Guiseppe, V. E., Haufe, C. R., Henning, R., Aguilar, D. Hervas, Hoppe, E. W., Hostiuc, A., Kidd, M. F., Kim, I., Kouzes, R. T., Lannen V, T. E., Li, A., López-Castaño, J. M., Martin, R. D., Massarczyk, R., Meijer, S. J., Oli, T. K., Paudel, L. S., Pettus, W., Poon, A. W. P., Radford, D. C., Reine, A. L., Rielage, K., Ruof, N. W., Schaper, D. C., Schleich, S. J., Tedeschi, D., Varner, R. L., Vasilyev, S., Watkins, S. L., Wilkerson, J. F., Wiseman, C., Xu, W., and Yu, C. -H.

Subjects
Nuclear Experiment, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

The background index is an important quantity which is used in projecting and calculating the half-life sensitivity of neutrinoless double-beta decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$) experiments. A novel analysis framework is presented to calculate the background index using the specific activities, masses and simulated efficiencies of an experiment's components as distributions. This Bayesian framework includes a unified approach to combine specific activities from assay. Monte Carlo uncertainty propagation is used to build a background index distribution from the specific activity, mass and efficiency distributions. This analysis method is applied to the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, which deployed arrays of high-purity Ge detectors enriched in $^{76}$Ge to search for $0\nu\beta\beta$. The framework projects a mean background index of $\left[8.95 \pm 0.36\right] \times 10^{-4}$cts/(keV kg yr) from $^{232}$Th and $^{238}$U in the DEMONSTRATOR's components., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures

Published
2024

3. Light Dark Matter Constraints from SuperCDMS HVeV Detectors Operated Underground with an Anticoincidence Event Selection

Author

SuperCDMS Collaboration, Albakry, M. F., Alkhatib, I., Alonso-González, D., Amaral, D. W. P., Anczarski, J., Aralis, T., Aramaki, T., Arnquist, I. J., Langroudy, I. Ataee, Azadbakht, E., Bathurst, C., Bhattacharyya, R., Biffl, A. J., Brink, P. L., Buchanan, M., Bunker, R., Cabrera, B., Calkins, R., Cameron, R. A., Cartaro, C., Cerdeño, D. G., Chang, Y. -Y., Chaudhuri, M., Chen, J. -H., Chen, R., Chott, N., Cooley, J., Coombes, H., Cushman, P., Cyna, R., Das, S., De Brienne, F., Dharani, S., di Vacri, M. L., Diamond, M. D., Elwan, M., Fascione, E., Figueroa-Feliciano, E., Fouts, K., Fritts, M., Germond, R., Ghaith, M., Golwala, S. R., Hall, J., Harms, S. A. S., Harris, K., Hassan, N., Hong, Z., Hoppe, E. W., Hsu, L., Huber, M. E., Iyer, V., Jardin, D., Kashyap, V. K. S., Keller, S. T. D., Kelsey, M. H., Kennard, K. T., Kubik, A., Kurinsky, N. A., Lee, M., Leyva, J., Liu, J., Liu, Y., Loer, B., Asamar, E. Lopez, Lukens, P., MacFarlane, D. B., Mahapatra, R., Mammo, J. S., Mast, N., Mayer, A. J., Theenhausen, H. Meyer zu, Michaud, É., Michielin, E., Mirabolfathi, N., Mirzakhani, M., Mohanty, B., Monteiro, D., Nelson, J., Neog, H., Novati, V., Orrell, J. L., Osborne, M. D., Oser, S. M., Pandey, L., Pandey, S., Partridge, R., Pedreros, D. S., Peng, W., Perna, L., Perry, W. L., Podviianiuk, R., Poudel, S. S., Pradeep, A., Pyle, M., Rau, W., Reid, E., Ren, R., Reynolds, T., Rios, M., Roberts, A., Robinson, A. E., Ryan, J. L., Saab, T., Sadek, D., Sadoulet, B., Sahoo, S. P., Saikia, I., Sander, J., Sattari, A., Schmidt, B., Schnee, R. W., Scorza, S., Serfass, B., Simchony, A., Sincavage, D. J., Sinervo, P., Street, J., Sun, H., Tanner, E., Terry, G. D., Toback, D., Verma, S., Villano, A. N., von Krosigk, B., Watkins, S. L., Wen, O., Williams, Z., Wilson, M. J., Winchell, J., Wykoff, K., Yellin, S., Young, B. A., Yu, T. C., Zatschler, B., Zatschler, S., Zaytsev, A., Zhang, E., Zheng, L., Zuniga, A., and Zurowski, M. J.

Subjects
High Energy Physics - Experiment, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

This article presents constraints on dark-matter-electron interactions obtained from the first underground data-taking campaign with multiple SuperCDMS HVeV detectors operated in the same housing. An exposure of 7.63 g-days is used to set upper limits on the dark-matter-electron scattering cross section for dark matter masses between 0.5 and 1000 MeV/$c^2$, as well as upper limits on dark photon kinetic mixing and axion-like particle axioelectric coupling for masses between 1.2 and 23.3 eV/$c^2$. Compared to an earlier HVeV search, sensitivity was improved as a result of an increased overburden of 225 meters of water equivalent, an anticoincidence event selection, and better pile-up rejection. In the case of dark-matter-electron scattering via a heavy mediator, an improvement by up to a factor of 25 in cross-section sensitivity was achieved., Comment: 7 pages + title and references, 4 figures, and 1 table

Published
2024

4. Imaging of single barium atoms in a second matrix site in solid xenon for barium tagging in a $^{136}$Xe double beta decay experiment

Author

Yvaine, M., Fairbank, D., Soderstrom, J., Taylor, C., Stanley, J., Walton, T., Chambers, C., Iverson, A., Fairbank, W., Kharusi, S. Al, Amy, A., Angelico, E., Anker, A., Arnquist, I. J., Atencio, A., Bane, J., Belov, V., Bernard, E. P., Bhatta, T., Bolotnikov, A., Breslin, J., Breur, P. A., Brodsky, J. P., Brown, E., Brunner, T., Caden, E., Cao, G. F., Cesmecioglu, D., Chambers, E., Chana, B., Chernyak, D., Chiu, M., Collister, R., Cvitan, M., Daniels, T., Darroch, L., DeVoe, R., di Vacri, M. L., Dolinski, M. J., Eckert, B., Elbeltagi, M., Elmansali, R., Fatemighomi, N., Foust, B., Fu, Y. S., Gallacher, D., Gallice, N., Giacomini, G., Gillis, W., Gingras, C., Gornea, R., Gratta, G., Hardy, C. A., Hedges, S., Hein, E., Holt, J. D., Hoppe, E. W., Karelin, A., Keblbeck, D., Kotov, I., Kuchenkov, A., Kumar, K. S., Kwiatkowski, A. A., Larson, A., Latif, M. B., Leach, K. G., Lennarz, A., Leonard, D. S., Lewis, H., Li, G., Li, Z., Licciardi, C., Lindsay, R., MacLellan, R., Majidi, S., Malbrunot, C., Masbou, J., McMichael, K., Peregrina, M. Medina, Moe, M., Mong, B., Moore, D. C., Natzke, C. R., Ngwadla, X. E., Ni, K., Nolan, A., Nowicki, S. C., Ondze, J. C. Nzobadila, Odian, A., Orrell, J. L., Ortega, G. S., Overman, C. T., Pagani, L., Smalley, H. Peltz, Perna, A., Pocar, A., Radeka, V., Raguzin, E., Rasiwala, H., Ray, D., Rescia, S., Richardson, G., Ross, R., Rowson, P. C., Saldanha, R., Sangiorgio, S., Schwartz, S., Sekula, S., Si, L., Soma, A. K., Spadoni, F., Stekhanov, V., Sun, X. L., Thibado, S., Tidball, A., Totev, T., Triambak, S., Tsang, T., Tyuka, O. A., van Bruggen, E., Vidal, M., Walent, M., Wamba, K., Wang, H. W., Wang, Q. D., Wang, W., Wang, Y. G., Watts, M., Wehrfritz, M., Wen, L. J., Wichoski, U., Wilde, S., Worcester, M., Xu, H., Yang, L., Yu, M., and Zeldovich, O.

Subjects
Physics - Atomic Physics, High Energy Physics - Experiment, Nuclear Experiment
Abstract

Neutrinoless double beta decay is one of the most sensitive probes for new physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. One of the isotopes under investigation is $^{136}$Xe, which would double beta decay into $^{136}$Ba. Detecting the single $^{136}$Ba daughter provides a sort of ultimate tool in the discrimination against backgrounds. Previous work demonstrated the ability to perform single atom imaging of Ba atoms in a single-vacancy site of a solid xenon matrix. In this paper, the effort to identify signal from individual barium atoms is extended to Ba atoms in a hexa-vacancy site in the matrix and is achieved despite increased photobleaching in this site. Abrupt fluorescence turn-off of a single Ba atom is also observed. Significant recovery of fluorescence signal lost through photobleaching is demonstrated upon annealing of Ba deposits in the Xe ice. Following annealing, it is observed that Ba atoms in the hexa-vacancy site exhibit antibleaching while Ba atoms in the tetra-vacancy site exhibit bleaching. This may be evidence for a matrix site transfer upon laser excitation. Our findings offer a path of continued research toward tagging of Ba daughters in all significant sites in solid xenon., Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures

Published
2024

5. Measurement of Energy Resolution with the NEXT-White Silicon Photomultipliers

Author

Contreras, T., Palmeiro, B., Almazán, H., Para, A., Martínez-Lema, G., Guenette, R., Adams, C., Álvarez, V., Aparicio, B., Aranburu, A. I., Arazi, L., Arnquist, I. J., Auria-Luna, F., Ayet, S., Azevedo, C. D. R., Bailey, K., Ballester, F., del Barrio-Torregrosa, M., Bayo, A., Benlloch-Rodríguez, J. M., Borges, F. I. G. M., Brodolin, A., Byrnes, N., Cárcel, S., Castillo, A., Cebrián, S., Church, E., Cid, L., Conde, C. A. N., Cossío, F. P., Dey, E., Díaz, G., Dickel, T., Echevarria, C., Elorza, M., Escada, J., Esteve, R., Felkai, R., Fernandes, L. M. P., Ferrario, P., Ferreira, A. L., Foss, F. W., Freixa, Z., García-Barrena, J., Gómez-Cadenas, J. J., González, R., Grocott, J. W. R., Hauptman, J., Henriques, C. A. O., Morata, J. A. Hernando, Herrero-Gómez, P., Herrero, V., Carrete, C. Hervés, Ifergan, Y., Jones, B. J. P., Kellerer, F., Larizgoitia, L., Larumbe, A., Lebrun, P., Lopez, F., López-March, N., Madigan, R., Mano, R. D. P., Marques, A. P., Martín-Albo, J., Martínez-Vara, M., Miller, R. L., Mistry, K., Molina-Canteras, J., Monrabal, F., Monteiro, C. M. B., Mora, F. J., Navarro, K. E., Novella, P., Nuñez, A., Nygren, D. R., Oblak, E., Palacio, J., Parmaksiz, I., Pazos, A., Pelegrin, J., Maneiro, M. Pérez, Querol, M., Redwine, A. B., Renner, J., Rivilla, I., Rogero, C., Rogers, L., Romeo, B., Romo-Luque, C., Santos, F. P., Santos, J. M. F. dos, Seemann, M., Shomroni, I., Silva, P. A. O. C., Simón, A., Soleti, S. R., Sorel, M., Soto-Oton, J., Teixeira, J. M. R., Teruel-Pardo, S., Toledo, J. F., Tonnelé, C., Torrent, J., Trettin, A., Usón, A., Valle, P. R. G., Veloso, J. F. C. A., Waiton, J., and Yubero-Navarro, A.

Subjects
High Energy Physics - Experiment, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

The NEXT-White detector, a high-pressure gaseous xenon time projection chamber, demonstrated the excellence of this technology for future neutrinoless double beta decay searches using photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) to measure energy and silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) to extract topology information. This analysis uses $^{83m}\text{Kr}$ data from the NEXT-White detector to measure and understand the energy resolution that can be obtained with the SiPMs, rather than with PMTs. The energy resolution obtained of (10.9 $\pm$ 0.6) $\%$, full-width half-maximum, is slightly larger than predicted based on the photon statistics resulting from very low light detection coverage of the SiPM plane in the NEXT-White detector. The difference in the predicted and measured resolution is attributed to poor corrections, which are expected to be improved with larger statistics. Furthermore, the noise of the SiPMs is shown to not be a dominant factor in the energy resolution and may be negligible when noise subtraction is applied appropriately, for high-energy events or larger SiPM coverage detectors. These results, which are extrapolated to estimate the response of large coverage SiPM planes, are promising for the development of future, SiPM-only, readout planes that can offer imaging and achieve similar energy resolution to that previously demonstrated with PMTs.

Published
2024

6. Supernova Electron-Neutrino Interactions with Xenon in the nEXO Detector

Author

nEXO Collaboration, Hedges, S., Kharusi, S. Al, Angelico, E., Brodsky, J. P., Richardson, G., Wilde, S., Amy, A., Anker, A., Arnquist, I. J., Arsenault, P., Atencio, A., Badhrees, I., Bane, J., Belov, V., Bernard, E. P., Bhatta, T., Bolotnikov, A., Breslin, J., Breur, P. A., Brown, E., Brunner, T., Caden, E., Cao, G. F., Cao, L. Q., Cesmecioglu, D., Chambers, E., Chana, B., Charlebois, S. A., Chernyak, D., Chiu, M., Collister, R., Cvitan, M., Dalmasson, J., Daniels, T., Darroch, L., DeVoe, R., di Vacri, M. L., Ding, Y. Y., Dolinski, M. J., Eckert, B., Elbeltagi, M., Elmansali, R., Fabris, L., Fairbank, W., Farine, J., Fatemighomi, N., Foust, B., Fu, Y. S., Gallacher, D., Gallice, N., Gillis, W., Goeldi, D., Gorham, A., Gornea, R., Gratta, G., Guan, Y. D., Hardy, C. A., Heffner, M., Hein, E., Holt, J. D., Hoppe, E. W., House, A., Hunt, W., Iverson, A., Kachru, P., Karelin, A., Keblbeck, D., Kuchenkov, A., Kumar, K. S., Larson, A., Latif, M. B., Leach, K. G., Lenardo, B. G., Leonard, D. S., Lewis, H., Li, G., Li, Z., Licciardi, C., Lindsay, R., MacLellan, R., Majidi, S., Malbrunot, C., Martel-Dion, P., Masbou, J., McMichael, K., Medina-Peregrina, M., Mong, B., Moore, D. C., Nattress, J., Natzke, C. R., Ngwadla, X. E., Ni, K., Nolan, A., Nowicki, S. C., Ondze, J. C. Nzobadila, Orrell, J. L., Ortega, G. S., Overman, C. T., Pagani, L., Smalley, H. Peltz, Perna, A., Piepke, A., Franco, T. Pinto, Pocar, A., Pratte, J. -F., Rasiwala, H., Ray, D., Raymond, K., Rescia, S., Riot, V., Ross, R., Saldanha, R., Sangiorgio, S., Schwartz, S., Sekula, S., Soderstrom, J., Soma, A. K., Spadoni, F., Sun, X. L., Thibado, S., Tidball, A., Totev, T., Triambak, S., Tsang, R. H. M., Tyuka, O. A., van Bruggen, E., Vidal, M., Viel, S., Walent, M., Wang, Q. D., Wang, W., Wang, Y. G., Watts, M., Wehrfritz, M., Wei, W., Wen, L. J., Wichoski, U., Wu, X. M., Xu, H., Yang, H. B., Yang, L., Yu, M., Yvaine, M., Zeldovich, O., and Zhao, J.

Subjects
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology, High Energy Physics - Experiment, Nuclear Theory
Abstract

Electron-neutrino charged-current interactions with xenon nuclei were modeled in the nEXO neutrinoless double-beta decay detector (~5-tonne, 90% ${}^{136}$Xe, 10% ${}^{134}$Xe) to evaluate its sensitivity to supernova neutrinos. Predictions for event rates and detectable signatures were modeled using the MARLEY event generator. We find good agreement between MARLEY's predictions and existing theoretical calculations of the inclusive cross sections at supernova neutrino energies. The interactions modeled by MARLEY were simulated within the nEXO simulation framework and were run through an example reconstruction algorithm to determine the detector's efficiency for reconstructing these events. The simulated data, incorporating the detector response, were used to study the ability of nEXO to reconstruct the incident electron-neutrino spectrum and these results were extended to a larger xenon detector of the same isotope enrichment. We estimate that nEXO will be able to observe electron-neutrino interactions with xenon from supernovae as far as 5 to 8 kpc from earth, while the ability to reconstruct incident electron-neutrino spectrum parameters from observed interactions in nEXO is limited to closer supernovae., Comment: 17 pages, 16 figures

Published
2024

7. Fluorescence Imaging of Individual Ions and Molecules in Pressurized Noble Gases for Barium Tagging in $^{136}$Xe

Author

NEXT Collaboration, Byrnes, N., Dey, E., Foss, F. W., Jones, B. J. P., Madigan, R., McDonald, A., Miller, R. L., Navarro, K. E., Norman, L. R., Nygren, D. R., Adams, C., Almazán, H., Álvarez, V., Aparicio, B., Aranburu, A. I., Arazi, L., Arnquist, I. J., Auria-Luna, F., Ayet, S., Azevedo, C. D. R., Barcelon, J. E., Bailey, K., Ballester, F., del Barrio-Torregrosa, M., Bayo, A., Benlloch-Rodríguez, J. M., Borges, F. I. G. M., Brodolin, A., Cárcel, S., Castillo, A., Cebrián, S., Church, E., Cid, L., Conde, C. A. N., Contreras, T., Cossío, F. P., Díaz, G., Dickel, T., Echevarria, C., Elorza, M., Escada, J., Esteve, R., Felkai, R., Fernandes, L. M. P., Ferrario, P., Ferreira, A. L., Freixa, Z., García-Barrena, J., Gómez-Cadenas, J. J., González, R., Grocott, J. W. R., Guenette, R., Hauptman, J., Henriques, C. A. O., Morata, J. A. Hernando, Herrero-Gómez, P., Herrero, V., Carrete, C. Hervés, Ho, P., Ifergan, Y., Kellerer, F., Larizgoitia, L., Larumbe, A., Lebrun, P., Lopez, F., López-March, N., Mano, R. D. P., Marques, A. P., Martín-Albo, J., Martínez-Lema, G., Martínez-Vara, M., Mistry, K., Molina-Canteras, J., Monrabal, F., Monteiro, C. M. B., Mora, F. J., Novella, P., Nuñez, A., Oblak, E., Palacio, J., Palmeiro, B., Para, A., Parmaksiz, I., Pazos, A., Pelegrin, J., Maneiro, M. Pérez, Querol, M., Redwine, A. B., Renner, J., Rivilla, I., Rogero, C., Rogers, L., Romeo, B., Romo-Luque, C., Santos, F. P., Santos, J. M. F. dos, Seemann, M., Shomroni, I., Silva, P. A. O. C., Simón, A., Soleti, S. R., Sorel, M., Soto-Oton, J., Teixeira, J. M. R., Teruel-Pardo, S., Toledo, J. F., Tonnelé, C., Torrent, J., Trettin, A., Usón, A., Valle, P. R. G., Veloso, J. F. C. A., Waiton, J., and Yubero-Navarro, A.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, High Energy Physics - Experiment, Nuclear Experiment
Abstract

The imaging of individual Ba$^{2+}$ ions in high pressure xenon gas is one possible way to attain background-free sensitivity to neutrinoless double beta decay and hence establish the Majorana nature of the neutrino. In this paper we demonstrate selective single Ba$^{2+}$ ion imaging inside a high-pressure xenon gas environment. Ba$^{2+}$ ions chelated with molecular chemosensors are resolved at the gas-solid interface using a diffraction-limited imaging system with scan area of 1$\times$1~cm$^2$ located inside 10~bar of xenon gas. This new form of microscopy represents an important enabling step in the development of barium tagging for neutrinoless double beta decay searches in $^{136}$Xe, as well as a new tool for studying the photophysics of fluorescent molecules and chemosensors at the solid-gas interface.

Published
2024

8. Design, characterization and installation of the NEXT-100 cathode and electroluminescence regions

Author

NEXT Collaboration, Mistry, K., Rogers, L., Jones, B. J. P., Munson, B., Norman, L., Adams, C., Almazán, H., Álvarez, V., Aparicio, B., Aranburu, A. I., Arazi, L., Arnquist, I. J., Auria-Luna, F., Ayet, S., Azevedo, C. D. R., Bailey, K., Ballester, F., del Barrio-Torregrosa, M., Bayo, A., Benlloch-Rodríguez, J. M., Borges, F. I. G. M., Brodolin, A., Byrnes, N., Cárcel, S., Castillo, A., Cebrián, S., Church, E., Cid, L., Conde, C. A. N., Contreras, T., Cossío, F. P., Dey, E., Díaz, G., Dickel, T., Echevarria, C., Elorza, M., Escada, J., Esteve, R., Felkai, R., Fernandes, L. M. P., Ferrario, P., Ferreira, A. L., Foss, F. W., Freitas, E. D. C., Freixa, Z., Gómez-Cadenas, J. J., González, R., Grocott, J. W. R., Guenette, R., Hafidi, K., Hauptman, J., Henriques, C. A. O., Hernando~Morata, J. A., Herrero-Gómez, P., Herrero, V., Carrete, C. Hervés, Ifergan, Y., Larizgoitia, L., Larumbe, A., Lebrun, P., Lopez, F., López-March, N., Madigan, R., Mano, R. D. P., Marques, A. P., Martín-Albo, J., Martínez-Lema, G., Martínez-Vara, M., Meziani, Z. E., Miller, R. L., Molina-Canteras, J., Monrabal, F., Monteiro, C. M. B., Mora, F. J., Navarro, K. E., Novella, P., Nuñez, A., Nygren, D. R., Oblak, E., Oliver, D., Palacio, J., Palmeiro, B., Para, A., Parmaksiz, I., Pelegrin, J., Maneiro, M. Pérez, Querol, M., Redwine, A. B., Renner, J., Rivilla, I., Rogero, C., Romeo, B., Romo-Luque, C., Santos, F. P., Santos, J. M. F. dos, Seemann, M., Shomroni, I., Simón, A., Soleti, S. R., Sorel, M., Soto-Oton, J., Teixeira, J. M. R., Toledo, J. F., Torrent, J., Trettin, A., Usón, A., Veloso, J. F. C. A., Waiton, J., and Yubero, A.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

NEXT-100 is currently being constructed at the Laboratorio Subterr\'aneo de Canfranc in the Spanish Pyrenees and will search for neutrinoless double beta decay using a high-pressure gaseous time projection chamber (TPC) with 100 kg of xenon. Charge amplification is carried out via electroluminescence (EL) which is the process of accelerating electrons in a high electric field region causing secondary scintillation of the medium proportional to the initial charge. The NEXT-100 EL and cathode regions are made from tensioned hexagonal meshes of 1 m diameter. This paper describes the design, characterization, and installation of these parts for NEXT-100. Simulations of the electric field are performed to model the drift and amplification of ionization electrons produced in the detector under various EL region alignments and rotations. Measurements of the electrostatic breakdown voltage in air characterize performance under high voltage conditions and identify breakdown points. The electrostatic deflection of the mesh is quantified and fit to a first-principles mechanical model. Measurements were performed with both a standalone test EL region and with the NEXT-100 EL region before its installation in the detector. Finally, we describe the parts as installed in NEXT-100, following their deployment in Summer 2023., Comment: 35 pages, 25 Figures, update includes accepted version in JINST

Published
2023
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9. Demonstration of Event Position Reconstruction based on Diffusion in the NEXT-White Detector

Author

Haefner, J., Navarro, K. E., Guenette, R., Jones, B. J. P., Tripathi, A., Adams, C., Almazán, H., Álvarez, V., Aparicio, B., Aranburu, A. I., Arazi, L., Arnquist, I. J., Auria-Luna, F., Ayet, S., Azevedo, C. D. R., Bailey, K., Ballester, F., del Barrio-Torregrosa, M., Bayo, A., BenllochRodríguez, J. M., Borges, F. I. G. M., Brodolin, A., Byrnes, N., Cárcel, S., Carrión, J. V., Cebrián, S., Church, E., Cid, L., Conde, C. A. N., Contreras, T., Cossío, F. P., Dey, E., Díaz, G., Dickel, T., Elorza, M., Escada, J., Esteve, R., Felkai, R., Fernandes, L. M. P., Ferrario, P., Ferreira, A. L., Foss, F. W., Freitas, E. D. C., Freixa, Z., Generowicz, J., Goldschmidt, A., Gómez-Cadenas, J. J., González, R., Grocott, J., Hafidi, K., Hauptman, J., Henriques, C. A. O., Morata, J. A. Hernando, Herrero-Gómez, P., Herrero, V., Carrete, C. Hervés, Ifergan, Y., Labarga, L., Larizgoitia, L., Larumbe, A., Lebrun, P., Lopez, F., López-March, N., Madigan, R., Mano, R. D. P., Marques, A. P., Martín-Albo, J., Martínez-Lema, G., Martínez-Vara, M., Meziani, Z. E., Miller, R. L., Mistry, K., Molina-Canteras, J., Monrabal, F., Monteiro, C. M. B., Mora, F. J., Vidal, J. Muñoz, Novella, P., Nuñez, A., Nygren, D. R., Oblak, E., Palacio, J., Palmeiro, B., Para, A., Parmaksiz, I., Pelegrin, J., Maneiro, M. Pérez, Querol, M., Redwine, A. B., Renner, J., Rivilla, I., Rodríguez, J., Rogero, C., Rogers, L., Romeo, B., Romo-Luque, C., Santos, F. P., Santos, J. M. F. dos, Shomroni, I., Simón, A., Soleti, S. R., Sorel, M., Soto-Oton, J., Teixeira, J. M. R., Toledo, J. F., Torrent, J., Trettin, A., Usón, A., Veloso, J. F. C. A., Waiton, J., and White, J. T.

Subjects
High Energy Physics - Experiment, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

Noble element time projection chambers are a leading technology for rare event detection in physics, such as for dark matter and neutrinoless double beta decay searches. Time projection chambers typically assign event position in the drift direction using the relative timing of prompt scintillation and delayed charge collection signals, allowing for reconstruction of an absolute position in the drift direction. In this paper, alternate methods for assigning event drift distance via quantification of electron diffusion in a pure high pressure xenon gas time projection chamber are explored. Data from the NEXT-White detector demonstrate the ability to achieve good position assignment accuracy for both high- and low-energy events. Using point-like energy deposits from $^{83\mathrm{m}}$Kr calibration electron captures ($E\sim45$keV), the position of origin of low-energy events is determined to $2~$cm precision with bias $< 1$mm. A convolutional neural network approach is then used to quantify diffusion for longer tracks (E$\geq$1.5MeV), yielding a precision of 3cm on the event barycenter. The precision achieved with these methods indicates the feasibility energy calibrations of better than 1% FWHM at Q$_{\beta\beta}$ in pure xenon, as well as the potential for event fiducialization in large future detectors using an alternate method that does not rely on primary scintillation., Comment: 18 pages, 16 figures

Published
2023

10. Evaluation of SNOLAB background mitigation procedures through the use of an ICP-MS based dust monitoring methodology

Author

di Vacri, M. L., Scorza, S., French, A., Rocco, N. D., Schlieder, T. D., Arnquist, I. J., Hoppe, E. W., and Hall, J.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

Dust particulate fallout on materials in use for rare-event searches is a concerning source of radioactive backgrounds due to the presence of naturally occurring radionuclides K-40, Th-232, U-238, and their progeny in dust. Much effort is dedicated to inform radioactive backgrounds from dust and evaluate the efficacy of mitigation procedures. A great portion of such effort relies on fallout models and assumed dust composition. In this work, an ICP-MS based methodology was employed for a direct determination of fallout rates of radionuclides and stable isotopes of interest from dust particulate at the SNOLAB facility. Hosted in an active mine, the SNOLAB underground laboratory strives to maintain experimental areas at class 2000 cleanroom level. This work validates the mitigation procedures in place at SNOLAB, and informs dust backgrounds during laboratory activities. Fallout rates of major constituent of the local rock were measured two to three orders of magnitude lower in the clean experimental areas compared to non-clean transition areas from the mine to the laboratory. A ca. two order of magnitude increase in stable Pb fallout rate was determined in an experimental area during activities involving handling of Pb bricks. Increased K-40, Th-232, and U-238 fallout rates were measured in clean experimental areas during activities generating particulate., Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures, 6 tables

Published
2023

11. Majorana Demonstrator Data Release for AI/ML Applications

Author

Arnquist, I. J., Avignone III, F. T., Barabash, A. S., Barton, C. J., Bhimani, K. H., Blalock, E., Bos, B., Busch, M., Buuck, M., Caldwell, T. S., Chan, Y. -D., Christofferson, C. D., Chu, P. -H., Clark, M. L., Cuesta, C., Detwiler, J. A., Efremenko, Yu., Ejiri, H., Elliott, S. R., Fuad, N., Giovanetti, G. K., Green, M. P., Gruszko, J., Guinn, I. S., Guiseppe, V. E., Haufe, C. R., Henning, R., Aguilar, D. Hervas, Hoppe, E. W., Hostiuc, A., Kidd, M. F., Kim, I., Kouzes, R. T., Lannen V, T. E., Li, A., Lopez-Castano, J. M., Martin, R. D., Massarczyk, R., Meijer, S. J., Mertens, S., Oli, T. K., Paudel, L. S., Pettus, W., Poon, A. W. P., Quenallata, B., Radford, D. C., Reine, A. L., Rielage, K., Ruof, N. W., Schaper, D. C., Schleich, S. J., Tedeschi, D., Varner, R. L., Vasilyev, S., Watkins, S. L., Wilkerson, J. F., Wiseman, C., Xu, W., Yu, C. -H., and Zhu, B. X.

Subjects
Computer Science - Machine Learning, Nuclear Experiment, Physics - Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

The enclosed data release consists of a subset of the calibration data from the Majorana Demonstrator experiment. Each Majorana event is accompanied by raw Germanium detector waveforms, pulse shape discrimination cuts, and calibrated final energies, all shared in an HDF5 file format along with relevant metadata. This release is specifically designed to support the training and testing of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms upon our data. This document is structured as follows. Section I provides an overview of the dataset's content and format; Section II outlines the location of this dataset and the method for accessing it; Section III presents the NPML Machine Learning Challenge associated with this dataset; Section IV contains a disclaimer from the Majorana collaboration regarding the use of this dataset; Appendix A contains technical details of this data release. Please direct questions about the material provided within this release to liaobo77@ucsd.edu (A. Li)., Comment: DataPlanet Access: https://dataplanet.ucsd.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=perma:83.ucsddata/UQWQAV

Published
2023

12. Energy Calibration of Germanium Detectors for the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR

Author

Arnquist, I. J., Avignone III, F. T., Barabash, A. S., Barton, C. J., Bhimani, K. H., Blalock, E., Bos, B., Busch, M., Buuck, M., Caldwell, T. S., Chan, Y-D., Christofferson, C. D., Chu, P. -H., Clark, M. L., Cuesta, C., Detwiler, J. A., Efremenko, Yu., Ejiri, H., Elliott, S. R., Giovanetti, G. K., Green, M. P., Gruszko, J., Guinn, I. S., Guiseppe, V. E., Haufe, C. R., Henning, R., Aguilar, D. Hervas, Hoppe, E. W., Hostiuc, A., Kidd, M. F., Kim, I., Kouzes, R. T., Lannen V, T. E., Li, A., López-Castaño, J. M., Martin, E. L., Martin, R. D., Massarczyk, R., Meijer, S. J., Oli, T. K., Paudel, L. S., Pettus, W., Poon, A. W. P., Radford, D. C., Reine, A. L., Rielage, K., Ruof, N. W., Schaper, D. C., Tedeschi, D., Varner, R. L., Vasilyev, S., Wilkerson, J. F., Wiseman, C., Xu, W., Yu, C. -H., and Zhu, B. X.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, Nuclear Experiment
Abstract

The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR was a search for neutrinoless double-beta decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$) in the $^{76}$Ge isotope. It was staged at the 4850-foot level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in Lead, SD. The experiment consisted of 58 germanium detectors housed in a low background shield and was calibrated once per week by deploying a $^{228}$Th line source for 1 to 2 hours. The energy scale calibration determination for the detector array was automated using custom analysis tools. We describe the offline procedure for calibration of the Demonstrator germanium detectors, including the simultaneous fitting of multiple spectral peaks, estimation of energy scale uncertainties, and the automation of the calibration procedure.

Published
2023
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13. Constraints on the decay of $^{180m}$Ta

Author

Arnquist, I. J., Avignone III, F. T., Barabash, A. S., Barton, C. J., Bhimani, K. H., Blalock, E., Bos, B., Busch, M., Buuck, M., Caldwell, T. S., Christofferson, C. D., Chu, P. -H., Clark, M. L., Cuesta, C., Detwiler, J. A., Efremenko, Yu., Ejiri, H., Elliott, S. R., Giovanetti, G. K., Goett, J., Green, M. P., Gruszko, J., Guinn, I. S., Guiseppe, V. E., Haufe, C. R., Henning, R., Aguilar, D. Hervas, Hoppe, E. W., Hostiuc, A., Kim, I., Kouzes, R. T., Lannen V, T. E., Li, A., Lopez-Castano, J. M., Massarczyk, R., Meijer, S. J., Meijer, W., Oli, T. K., Paudel, L. S., Pettus, W., Poon, A. W. P., Radford, D. C., Reine, A. L., Rielage, K., Rouyer, A., Ruof, N. W., Schaper, D. C., Schleich, S. J., Smith-Gandy, T. A., Tedeschi, D., Varner, R. L., Vasilyev, S., Watkins, S. L., Wilkerson, J. F., Wiseman, C., Xu, W., Yu, C. -H., Alves, D. S. M., and Ramani, H.

Subjects
Nuclear Experiment, High Energy Physics - Experiment
Abstract

$^{180m}$Ta is a rare nuclear isomer whose decay has never been observed. Its remarkably long lifetime surpasses the half-lives of all other known $\beta$ and electron capture decays due to the large K-spin differences and small energy differences between the isomeric and lower energy states. Detecting its decay presents a significant experimental challenge but could shed light on neutrino-induced nucleosynthesis mechanisms, the nature of dark matter and K-spin violation. For this study, we repurposed the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, an experimental search for the neutrinoless double-beta decay of $^{76}$Ge using an array of high-purity germanium detectors, to search for the decay of $^{180m}$Ta. More than 17 kilograms, the largest amount of tantalum metal ever used for such a search was installed within the ultra-low background detector array. In this paper we present results from the first year of Ta data taking and provide an updated limit for the $^{180m}$Ta half-life on the different decay channels. With new limits up to 1.5 x $10^{19}$ years, we improved existing limits by one to two orders of magnitude. This result is the most sensitive search for a single $\beta$ and electron capture decay ever achieved.

Published
2023
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14. Demonstration of neutrinoless double beta decay searches in gaseous xenon with NEXT

Author

NEXT Collaboration, Novella, P., Sorel, M., Usón, A., Adams, C., Almazán, H., Álvarez, V., Aparicio, B., Aranburu, A. I., Arazi, L., Arnquist, I. J., Auria-Luna, F., Ayet, S., Azevedo, C. D. R., Bailey, K., Ballester, F., del Barrio-Torregrosa, M., Bayo, A., Benlloch-Rodríguez, J. M., Borges, F. I. G. M., Bounasser, S., Byrnes, N., Cárcel, S., Carrión, J. V., Cebrián, S., Church, E., Cid, L., Conde, C. A. N., Contreras, T., Cossío, F. P., Dey, E., Díaz, G., Dickel, T., Elorza, M., Escada, J., Esteve, R., Fahs, A., Felkai, R., Fernandes, L. M. P., Ferrario, P., Ferreira, A. L., Foss, F. W., Freitas, E. D. C., Freixa, Z., Generowicz, J., Goldschmidt, A., Gómez-Cadenas, J. J., González, R., Grocott, J., Guenette, R., Haefner, J., Hafidi, K., Hauptman, J., Henriques, C. A. O., Morata, J. A. Hernando, Herrero-Gómez, P., Herrero, V., Carrete, C. Hervés, Ho, J., Ho, P., Ifergan, Y., Jones, B. J. P., Labarga, L., Larizgoitia, L., Larumbe, A., Lebrun, P., Lopez, F., Gutierrez, D. Lopez, López-March, N., Madigan, R., Mano, R. D. P., Marques, A. P., Martín-Albo, J., Martínez-Lema, G., Martínez-Vara, M., Meziani, Z. E., Miller, R. L., Mistry, K., Molina-Canteras, J., Monrabal, F., Monteiro, C. M. B., Mora, F. J., Vidal, J. Muñoz, Navarro, K. E., Nuñez, A., Nygren, D. R., Oblak, E., Odriozola-Gimeno, M., Palacio, J., Palmeiro, B., Para, A., Parmaksiz, I., Pelegrin, J., Maneiro, M. Pérez, Querol, M., Redwine, A. B., Renner, J., Rivilla, I., Rodríguez, J., Rogero, C., Rogers, L., Romeo, B., Romo-Luque, C., Santos, F. P., Santos, J. M. F. dos, Simón, A., Soleti, S. R., Stanford, C., Teixeira, J. M. R., Toledo, J. F., Torrent, J., Veloso, J. F. C. A., Vuong, T. T., Waiton, J., and White, J. T.

Subjects
Nuclear Experiment, High Energy Physics - Experiment, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

The NEXT experiment aims at the sensitive search of the neutrinoless double beta decay in $^{136}$Xe, using high-pressure gas electroluminescent time projection chambers. The NEXT-White detector is the first radiopure demonstrator of this technology, operated in the Laboratorio Subterr\'aneo de Canfranc. Achieving an energy resolution of 1% FWHM at 2.6 MeV and further background rejection by means of the topology of the reconstructed tracks, NEXT-White has been exploited beyond its original goals in order to perform a neutrinoless double beta decay search. The analysis considers the combination of 271.6 days of $^{136}$Xe-enriched data and 208.9 days of $^{136}$Xe-depleted data. A detailed background modeling and measurement has been developed, ensuring the time stability of the radiogenic and cosmogenic contributions across both data samples. Limits to the neutrinoless mode are obtained in two alternative analyses: a background-model-dependent approach and a novel direct background-subtraction technique, offering results with small dependence on the background model assumptions. With a fiducial mass of only 3.50$\pm$0.01 kg of $^{136}$Xe-enriched xenon, 90% C.L. lower limits to the neutrinoless double beta decay are found in the T$_{1/2}^{0\nu}>5.5\times10^{23}-1.3\times10^{24}$ yr range, depending on the method. The presented techniques stand as a proof-of-concept for the searches to be implemented with larger NEXT detectors.

Published
2023
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15. An integrated online radioassay data storage and analytics tool for nEXO

Author

Tsang, R. H. M., Piepke, A., Kharusi, S. Al, Angelico, E., Arnquist, I. J., Atencio, A., Badhrees, I., Bane, J., Belov, V., Bernard, E. P., Bhat, A., Bhatta, T., Bolotnikov, A., Breur, P. A., Brodsky, J. P., Brown, E., Brunner, T., Caden, E., Cao, G. F., Cao, L. Q., Cesmecioglu, D., Chambers, C., Chambers, E., Chana, B., Charlebois, S. A., Chernyak, D., Chiu, M., Cleveland, B., Cohen, J. R., Collister, R., Cvitan, M., Dalmasson, J., Darroch, L., Deslandes, K., DeVoe, R., di Vacri, M. L., Ding, Y. Y., Dolinski, M. J., Echevers, J., Eckert, B., Elbeltagi, M., Elmansali, R., Fabris, L., Fairbank, W., Farine, J., Fu, Y. S., Gallacher, D., Gallina, G., Gautam, P., Giacomini, G., Gillis, W., Gingras, C., Goeldi, D., Gornea, R., Gratta, G., Guan, Y. D., Hardy, C. A., Hedges, S., Heffner, M., Hein, E., Holt, J., Hoppe, E. W., House, A., Hunt, W., Iverson, A., Jamil, A., Jiang, X. S., Karelin, A., Kaufman, L. J., Kotov, I., Krücken, R., Kuchenkov, A., Kumar, K. S., Larson, A., Leach, K. G., Lenardo, B. G., Leonard, D. S., Li, G., Li, S., Li, Z., Licciardi, C., Lindsay, R., MacLellan, R., Mahtab, M., Majidi, S., Malbrunot, C., Martel-Dion, P., Masbou, J., Massacret, N., McMichael, K., Mong, B., Moore, D. C., Murray, K., Nattress, J., Natzke, C. R., Ngwadla, X. E., Ni, K., Nolan, A., Nowicki, S. C., Ondze, J. C. Nzobadila, Orrell, J. L., Ortega, G. S., Overman, C. T., Peltz-Smalley, H., Perna, A., Franco, T. Pinto, Pocar, A., Pratte, J. -F., Radeka, V., Raguzin, E., Rasiwala, H., Ray, D., Rebeiro, B., Rescia, S., Retière, F., Richardson, G., Ringuette, J., Riot, V., Rowson, P. C., Roy, N., Rudolph, L., Saldanha, R., Sangiorgio, S., Schwartz, S., Soderstrom, J., Soma, A. K., Spadoni, F., Stekhanov, V., Sun, X. L., Barakoohi, E. Teimoori, Thibado, S., Tidball, A., Totev, T., Triambak, S., Tsang, T., Tyuka, O. A., Underwood, R., van Bruggen, E., Veeraraghavan, V., Vidal, M., Viel, S., Walent, M., Wamba, K., Wang, Q. D., Wang, W., Wang, Y. G., Watts, M., Wei, W., Wen, L. J., Wichoski, U., Wilde, S., Worcester, M., Wu, S., Wu, X. M., Yang, H., Yang, L., Yvaine, M., Zeldovich, O., Zhao, J., and Ziegler, T.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, Nuclear Experiment
Abstract

Large-scale low-background detectors are increasingly used in rare-event searches as experimental collaborations push for enhanced sensitivity. However, building such detectors, in practice, creates an abundance of radioassay data especially during the conceptual phase of an experiment when hundreds of materials are screened for radiopurity. A tool is needed to manage and make use of the radioassay screening data to quantitatively assess detector design options. We have developed a Materials Database Application for the nEXO experiment to serve this purpose. This paper describes this database, explains how it functions, and discusses how it streamlines the design of the experiment.

Published
2023

16. NEXT-CRAB-0: A High Pressure Gaseous Xenon Time Projection Chamber with a Direct VUV Camera Based Readout

Author

NEXT Collaboration, Byrnes, N. K., Parmaksiz, I., Adams, C., Asaadi, J., Baeza-Rubio, J, Bailey, K., Church, E., González-Díaz, D., Higley, A., Jones, B. J. P., Mistry, K., Moya, I. A., Nygren, D. R., Oyedele, P., Rogers, L., Stogsdill, K., Almazán, H., Álvarez, V., Aparicio, B., Aranburu, A. I., Arazi, L., Arnquist, I. J., Ayet, S., Azevedo, C. D. R., Ballester, F., del Barrio-Torregrosa, M., Bayo, A., Benlloch-Rodríguez, J. M., Borges, F. I. G. M., Bounasser, S., Cárcel, S., Carrión, J. V., Cebrián, S., Cid, L., Conde, C. A. N., Contreras, T., Cossío, F. P., Dey, E., Díaz, G., Dickel, T., Elorza, M., Escada, J., Esteve, R., Fahs, A., Felkai, R., Fernandes, L. M. P., Ferrario, P., Ferreira, A. L., Foss, F. W., Freitas, E. D. C., Freixa, Z., Generowicz, J., Goldschmidt, A., Gómez-Cadenas, J. J., González, R., Grocott, J., Guenette, R., Haefner, J., Hafidi, K., Hauptman, J., Henriques, C. A. O., Morata, J. A. Hernando, Herrero-Gómez, P., Herrero, V., Carrete, C. Hervés, Ho, J., Ho, P., Ifergan, Y., Labarga, L., Larizgoitia, L., Lebrun, P., Lopez, F, Gutierrez, D. Lopez, López-March, N., Madigan, R., Mano, R. D. P., Marques, A. P., Martín-Albo, J., Martínez-Lema, G., Martínez-Vara, M., Meziani, Z. E., Miller, R. L., Monrabal, F., Monteiro, C. M. B., Mora, F. J., Vidal, J. Muñoz, Navarro, K. E., Novella, P., Nuñez, A., Oblak, E., Odriozola-Gimeno, M., Palacio, J., Palmeiro, B., Para, A., Pelegrin, J, Maneiro, M. Pérez, Querol, M., Redwine, A. B., Renner, J., Rivilla, I., Rodríguez, J., Rogero, C., Romeo, B., Romo-Luque, C., Santos, F. P., Santos, J. M. F. dos, Simón, A., Soleti, S. R., Sorel, M., Stanford, C., Teixeira, J. M. R., Toledo, J. F., Torrent, J., Usón, A., Veloso, J. F. C. A., Vuong, T. T., Waiton, J., and White, J. T.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

The search for neutrinoless double beta decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$) remains one of the most compelling experimental avenues for the discovery in the neutrino sector. Electroluminescent gas-phase time projection chambers are well suited to $0\nu\beta\beta$ searches due to their intrinsically precise energy resolution and topological event identification capabilities. Scalability to ton- and multi-ton masses requires readout of large-area electroluminescent regions with fine spatial resolution, low radiogenic backgrounds, and a scalable data acquisition system. This paper presents a detector prototype that records event topology in an electroluminescent xenon gas TPC via VUV image-intensified cameras. This enables an extendable readout of large tracking planes with commercial devices that reside almost entirely outside of the active medium.Following further development in intermediate scale demonstrators, this technique may represent a novel and enlargeable method for topological event imaging in $0\nu\beta\beta$., Comment: 30 Pages, 22 figures, Updated to match current JINST submission

Published
2023

17. First measurement of the nuclear-recoil ionization yield in silicon at 100 eV

Author

Albakry, M. F., Alkhatib, I., Alonso, D., Amaral, D. W. P., An, P., Aralis, T., Aramaki, T., Arnquist, I. J., Langroudy, I. Ataee, Azadbakht, E., Banik, S., Barbeau, P. S., Bathurst, C., Bhattacharyya, R., Brink, P. L., Bunker, R., Cabrera, B., Calkins, R., Cameron, R. A., Cartaro, C., Cerdeño, D. G., Chang, Y. -Y., Chaudhuri, M., Chen, R., Chott, N., Cooley, J., Coombes, H., Corbett, J., Cushman, P., Das, S., De Brienne, F., Rios, M., Dharani, S., di Vacri, M. L., Diamond, M. D., Elwan, M., Fascione, E., Figueroa-Feliciano, E., Fink, C. W., Fouts, K., Fritts, M., Gerbier, G., Germond, R., Ghaith, M., Golwala, S. R., Hall, J., Hassan, N., Hedges, S. C., Hines, B. A., Hong, Z., Hoppe, E. W., Hsu, L., Huber, M. E., Iyer, V., Kashyap, V. K. S., Kelsey, M. H., Kubik, A., Kurinsky, N. A., Lee, M., Li, A., Li, L., Litke, M., Liu, J., Liu, Y., Loer, B., Asamar, E. Lopez, Lukens, P., MacFarlane, D. B., Mahapatra, R., Mandic, V., Mast, N., Mayer, A. J., Theenhausen, H. Meyer zu, Michaud, ., Michielin, E., Mirabolfathi, N., Mohanty, B., Nebolsky, B., Nelson, J., Neog, H., Novati, V., Orrell, J. L., Osborne, M. D., Oser, S. M., Page, W. A., Pandey, S., Partridge, R., Pedreros, D. S., Perna, L., Podviianiuk, R., Ponce, F., Poudel, S., Pradeep, A., Pyle, M., Rau, W., Reid, E., Ren, R., Reynolds, T., Roberts, A., Robinson, A. E., Runge, J., Saab, T., Sadek, D., Sadoulet, B., Saikia, I., Sander, J., Sattari, A., Schmidt, B., Schnee, R. W., Scorza, S., Serfass, B., Poudel, S. S., Sincavage, D. J., Sinervo, P., Speaks, Z., Street, J., Sun, H., Thasrawala, F. K., Toback, D., Underwood, R., Verma, S., Villano, A. N., von Krosigk, B., Watkins, S. L., Wen, O., Williams, Z., Wilson, M. J., Winchell, J., Wykoff, K., Yellin, S., Young, B. A., Yu, T. C., Zatschler, B., Zatschler, S., Zaytsev, A., Zeolla, A., Zhang, E., Zheng, L., Zheng, Y., and Zuniga, A.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, High Energy Physics - Experiment, Nuclear Experiment
Abstract

We measured the nuclear--recoil ionization yield in silicon with a cryogenic phonon-sensitive gram-scale detector. Neutrons from a mono-energetic beam scatter off of the silicon nuclei at angles corresponding to energy depositions from 4\,keV down to 100\,eV, the lowest energy probed so far. The results show no sign of an ionization production threshold above 100\,eV. These results call for further investigation of the ionization yield theory and a comprehensive determination of the detector response function at energies below the keV scale.

Published
2023
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18. A Compact Dication Source for Ba$^{2+}$ Tagging and Heavy Metal Ion Sensor Development

Author

Navarro, K. E., Jones, B. J. P., Baeza-Rubio, J., Boyd, M., Denisenko, A. A., Foss, F. W., Giri, S., Miller, R., Nygren, D. R., Tiscareno, M. R., Samaniego, F. J., Stogsdill, K., Adams, C., Almazán, H., Álvarez, V., Aparicio, B., Aranburu, A. I., Arazi, L., Arnquist, I. J., Ayet, S., Azevedo, C. D. R., Bailey, K., Ballester, F., Benlloch-Rodríguez, J. M., Borges, F. I. G. M., Bounasser, S., Byrnes, N., Cárcel, S., Carrión, J. V., Cebrián, S., Church, E., Conde, C. A. N., Contreras, T., Cossío, F. P., Dey, E., Díaz, G., Dickel, T., Escada, J., Esteve, R., Fahs, A., Felkai, R., Fernandes, L. M. P., Ferrario, P., Ferreira, A. L., Freitas, E. D. C., Freixa, Z., Generowicz, J., Goldschmidt, A., Gómez-Cadenas, J. J., González, R., Grocott, J., Guenette, R., Haefner, J., Hafidi, K., Hauptman, J., Henriques, C. A. O., Morata, J. A. Hernando, Herrero-Gómez, P., Herrero, V., Carrete, C. Hervés, Ho, J., Ho, P., Ifergan, Y., Labarga, L., Larizgoitia, L., Lebrun, P., Gutierrez, D. Lopez, López-March, N., Madigan, R., Mano, R. D. P., Marques, A. P., Martín-Albo, J., Martínez-Lema, G., Martínez-Vara, M., Meziani, Z. E., Mistry, K., Monrabal, F., Monteiro, C. M. B., Mora, F. J., Vidal, J. Muñoz, Novella, P., Nuñez, A., Oblak, E., Odriozola-Gimeno, M., Palmeiro, B., Para, A., Pelegrín, J., Maneiro, M. Pérez, Querol, M., Redwine, A. B., Renner, J., Rivilla, I., Rodríguez, J., Rogero, C., Rogers, L., Romeo, B., Romo-Luque, C., Santos, F. P., Santos, J. M. F. dos, Simón, A., Sorel, M., Stanford, C., Teixeira, J. M. R., Toledo, J. F., Torrent, J., Usón, A., Veloso, J. F. C. A., Vuong, T. T., Waiton, J., and White, J. T.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, High Energy Physics - Experiment, Nuclear Experiment
Abstract

We present a tunable metal ion beam that delivers controllable ion currents in the picoamp range for testing of dry-phase ion sensors. Ion beams are formed by sequential atomic evaporation and single or multiple electron impact ionization, followed by acceleration into a sensing region. Controllability of the ionic charge state is achieved through tuning of electrode potentials that influence the retention time in the ionization region. Barium, lead, and cobalt samples have been used to test the system, with ion currents identified and quantified using a quadrupole mass analyzer. Realization of a clean $\mathrm{Ba^{2+}}$ ion beam within a bench-top system represents an important technical advance toward the development and characterization of barium tagging systems for neutrinoless double beta decay searches in xenon gas. This system also provides a testbed for investigation of novel ion sensing methodologies for environmental assay applications, with dication beams of Pb$^{2+}$ and Cd$^{2+}$ also demonstrated for this purpose.

Published
2023
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19. A Search for Low-mass Dark Matter via Bremsstrahlung Radiation and the Migdal Effect in SuperCDMS

Author

Albakry, M. F., Alkhatib, I., Alonso, D., Amaral, D. W. P., Aralis, T., Aramaki, T., Arnquist, I. J., Langroudy, I. Ataee, Azadbakht, E., Banik, S., Bathurst, C., Bhattacharyya, R., Brink, P. L., Bunker, R., Cabrera, B., Calkins, R., Cameron, R. A., Cartaro, C., Cerdeño, D. G., Chang, Y. -Y., Chaudhuri, M., Chen, R., Chott, N., Cooley, J., Coombes, H., Corbett, J., Cushman, P., Das, S., De Brienne, F., Rios, M., Dharani, S., di Vacri, M. L., Diamond, M. D., Elwan, M., Fascione, E., Figueroa-Feliciano, E., Fink, C. W., Fouts, K., Fritts, M., Gerbier, G., Germond, R., Ghaith, M., Golwala, S. R., Hall, J., Hassan, N., Hines, B. A., Hong, Z., Hoppe, E. W., Hsu, L., Huber, M. E., Iyer, V., Jardin, D., Kashyap, V. K. S., Kelsey, M. H., Kubik, A., Kurinsky, N. A., Lee, M., Li, A., Litke, M., Liu, J., Liu, Y., Loer, B., Asamar, E. Lopez, Lukens, P., MacFarlane, D. B., Mahapatra, R., Mast, N., Mayer, A. J., Theenhausen, H. Meyer zu, Michaud, É., Michielin, E., Mirabolfathi, N., Mohanty, B., Nelson, J., Neog, H., Novati, V., Orrell, J. L., Osborne, M. D., Oser, S. M., Page, W. A., Pandey, S., Partridge, R., Pedreros, D. S., Perna, L., Podviianiuk, R., Ponce, F., Poudel, S., Pradeep, A., Pyle, M., Rau, W., Reid, E., Ren, R., Reynolds, T., Roberts, A., Robinson, A. E., Saab, T., Sadek, D., Sadoulet, B., Saikia, I., Sander, J., Sattari, A., Schmidt, B., Schnee, R. W., Scorza, S., Serfass, B., Poudel, S. S., Sincavage, D. J., Sinervo, P., Street, J., Sun, H., Terry, G. D., Thasrawala, F. K., Toback, D., Underwood, R., Verma, S., Villano, A. N., von Krosigk, B., Watkins, S. L., Wen, O., Williams, Z., Wilson, M. J., Winchell, J., Wu, C. -P., Wykoff, K., Yellin, S., Young, B. A., Yu, T. C., Zatschler, B., Zatschler, S., Zaytsev, A., Zhang, E., Zheng, L., and Zuniga, A.

Subjects
High Energy Physics - Experiment, High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Abstract

We present a new analysis of previously published of SuperCDMS data using a profile likelihood framework to search for sub-GeV dark matter (DM) particles through two inelastic scattering channels: bremsstrahlung radiation and the Migdal effect. By considering these possible inelastic scattering channels, experimental sensitivity can be extended to DM masses that are undetectable through the DM-nucleon elastic scattering channel, given the energy threshold of current experiments. We exclude DM masses down to $220~\textrm{MeV}/c^2$ at $2.7 \times 10^{-30}~\textrm{cm}^2$ via the bremsstrahlung channel. The Migdal channel search provides overall considerably more stringent limits and excludes DM masses down to $30~\textrm{MeV}/c^2$ at $5.0 \times 10^{-30}~\textrm{cm}^2$., Comment: Submitted to PRD

Published
2023
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20. Search for inelastic dark matter-nucleus scattering with the PICO-60 CF$_{3}$I and C$_{3}$F$_{8}$ bubble chambers

Author

Adams, E., Ali, B., Arnquist, I. J., Baxter, D., Behnke, E., Bressler, M., Broerman, B., Chen, C. J., Clark, K., Collar, J. I., Cooper, P. S., Cripe, C., Crisler, M., Dahl, C. E., Das, M., Fallows, S., Farine, J., Filgas, R., Viltres, A. García, Giroux, G., Harris, O., Hillier, T., Hoppe, E. W., Jackson, C. M., Jin, M., Krauss, C. B., Kumar, V., Laurin, M., Lawson, I., Leblanc, A., Leng, H., Levine, I., Licciardi, C., Lippincott, W. H., Mitra, P., Monette, V., Moore, C., Neilson, R., Noble, A. J., Nozard, H., Pal, S., Piro, M. -C., Plante, A., Priya, S., Rethmeier, C., Robinson, A. E., Savoie, J., Sonnenschein, A., Starinski, N., Štekl, I., Tiwari, D., Vázquez-Jáuregui, E., Wichoski, U., Zacek, V., and Zhang, J.

Subjects
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, High Energy Physics - Experiment, High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Abstract

PICO bubble chambers have exceptional sensitivity to inelastic dark matter-nucleus interactions due to a combination of their extended nuclear recoil energy detection window from a few keV to $O$(100 keV) or more and the use of iodine as a heavy target. Inelastic dark matter-nucleus scattering is interesting for studying the properties of dark matter, where many theoretical scenarios have been developed. This study reports the results of a search for dark matter inelastic scattering with the PICO-60 bubble chambers. The analysis reported here comprises physics runs from PICO-60 bubble chambers using CF$_{3}$I and C$_{3}$F$_{8}$. The CF$_{3}$I run consisted of 36.8 kg of CF$_{3}$I reaching an exposure of 3415 kg-day operating at thermodynamic thresholds between 7 and 20 keV. The C$_{3}$F$_{8}$ runs consisted of 52 kg of C$_{3}$F$_{8}$ reaching exposures of 1404 kg-day and 1167 kg-day running at thermodynamic thresholds of 2.45 keV and 3.29 keV, respectively. The analysis disfavors various scenarios, in a wide region of parameter space, that provide a feasible explanation of the signal observed by DAMA, assuming an inelastic interaction, considering that the PICO CF$_{3}$I bubble chamber used iodine as the target material., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures

Published
2023

21. Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay

Author

Adams, C., Alfonso, K., Andreoiu, C., Angelico, E., Arnquist, I. J., Asaadi, J. A. A., Avignone, F. T., Axani, S. N., Barabash, A. S., Barbeau, P. S., Baudis, L., Bellini, F., Beretta, M., Bhatta, T., Biancacci, V., Biassoni, M., Bossio, E., Breur, P. A., Brodsky, J. P., Brofferio, C., Brown, E., Brugnera, R., Brunner, T., Burlac, N., Caden, E., Calgaro, S., Cao, G. F., Cao, L., Capelli, C., Cardani, L., Fernandez, R. Castillo, Cattadori, C. M., Chana, B., Chernyak, D., Christofferson, C. D., Chu, P. -H., Church, E., Cirigliano, V., Collister, R., Comellato, T., Dalmasson, J., D'Andrea, V., Daniels, T., Darroch, L., Decowski, M. P., Demarteau, M., Peixoto, S. De Meireles, Detwiler, J. A., DeVoe, R. G., Di Domizio, S., Di Marco, N., di Vacri, M. L., Dolinski, M. J., Efremenko, Yu., Elbeltagi, M., Elliott, S. R., Engel, J., Fabris, L., Fairbank, W. M., Farine, J., Febbraro, M., Figueroa-Feliciano, E., Fields, D. E., Formaggio, J. A., Foust, B. T., Franke, B., Fu, Y., Fujikawa, B. K., Gallacher, D., Gallina, G., Garfagnini, A., Gingras, C., Gironi, L., Giuliani, A., Gold, M., Gornea, R., Grant, C., Gratta, G., Green, M. P., Grinyer, G. F., Gruszko, J., Guan, Y., Guinn, I. S., Guiseppe, V. E., Gutierrez, T. D., Hansen, E. V., Hardy, C. A., Hauptman, J., Heffner, M., Heeger, K. M., Henning, R., Hergert, H., Aguilar, D. Hervas, Hodak, R., Holt, J. D., Hoppe, E. W., Horoi, M., Huang, H. Z., Inoue, K., Jamil, A., Jochum, J., Jones, B. J. P., Kaizer, J., Karapetrov, G., Kharusi, S. Al, Kidd, M. F., Kishimoto, Y., Klein, J. R., Kolomensky, Yu. G., Kontul, I., Kornoukhov, V. N., Krause, P., Krucken, R., Kumar, K. S., Lang, K., Leach, K. G., Lenardo, B. G., Leonhardt, A., Li, A., Li, G., Li, Z., Licciardi, C., Lindsay, R., Lippi, I., Liu, J., Macko, M., MacLellan, R., Macolino, C., Majidi, S., Mamedov, F., Masbou, J., Massarczyk, R., Mastbaum, A. T., Mayer, D., Mazumdar, A., Mei, D. M., Mei, Y., Meijer, S. J., Mereghetti, E., Mertens, S., Mistry, K., Mitsui, T., Moore, D. C., Morella, M., Nattress, J. T., Neuberger, M., Ngwadla, X. E., Nones, C., Novosad, V., Nygren, D. R., Ondze, J. C. Nzobadila, O'Donnell, T., Gann, G. D. Orebi, Orrell, J. L., Ortega, G. S., Ouellet, J. L., Overman, C., Pagani, L., Palusova, V., Para, A., Pavan, M., Perna, A., Pertoldi, L., Pettus, W., Piepke, A., Piseri, P., Pocar, A., Povinec, P., Psihas, F., Pullia, A., Radford, D. C., Ramonnye, G. J, Rasiwala, H., Redchuk, M., Riboldi, S., Richardson, G., Rielage, K., Rogers, L., Rowson, P. C., Rukhadze, E., Saakyan, R., Sada, C., Salamanna, G., Salamida, F., Saldanha, R., Salvat, D. J., Sangiorgio, S., Schaper, D. C., Schoenert, S., Schwarz, M., Schwartz, S. E., Shitov, Y., Simkovic, F., Singh, V., Slavickova, M., Sousa, A. C., Spadoni, F. L., Speller, D. H., Stekl, I., Sumathi, R. R., Surukuchi, P. T., Tayloe, R., Tornow, W., Torres, J. A., Totev, T. I., Triambak, S., Tyuka, O. A., Vasilyev, S. I., Velazquez, M., Viel, S., Vogl, C., von Strum, K., Wang, Q., Waters, D., Watkins, S. L., Watts, M., Wei, W. -Z., Welliver, B., Wen, Liangjian, Wichoski, U., Wilde, S., Wilkerson, J. F., Winslow, L., Wiseman, C., Wu, X., Xu, W., Yang, H., Yang, L., Yu, C. H., Zeman, J., Zennamo, J., and Zuzel, G.

Subjects
Nuclear Experiment, Nuclear Theory
Abstract

This White Paper, prepared for the Fundamental Symmetries, Neutrons, and Neutrinos Town Meeting related to the 2023 Nuclear Physics Long Range Plan, makes the case for double beta decay as a critical component of the future nuclear physics program. The major experimental collaborations and many theorists have endorsed this white paper., Comment: white paper submitted for the Fundamental Symmetries, Neutrons, and Neutrinos Town Meeting in support of the US Nuclear Physics Long Range Planning Process

Published
2022

22. Reflectance and fluorescence characteristics of PTFE coated with TPB at visible, UV, and VUV as a function of thickness

Author

Haefner, J., Fahs, A., Ho, J., Stanford, C., Guenette, R., Adams, C., Almazán, H., Álvarez, V., Aparicio, B., Aranburu, A. I., Arazi, L., Arnquist, I. J., Auria-Luna, F., Ayet, S., Azevedo, C. D. R., Bailey, K., Ballester, F., Benlloch-Rodríguez, J. M., Borges, F. I. G. M., Bounasser, S., Byrnes, N., Cárcel, S., Carrión, J. V., Cebrián, S., Church, E., Conde, C. A. N., Contreras, T., Cossío, F. P., Denisenko, A. A., Dey, E., Díaz, G., Dickel, T., Escada, J., Esteve, R., Felkai, R., Fernandes, L. M. P., Ferrario, P., Ferreira, A. L., Foss, F. W., Freitas, E. D. C., Freixa, Z., Generowicz, J., Goldschmidt, A., Gómez-Cadenas, J. J., González, R., Grocott, J., Hafidi, K., Hauptman, J., Henriques, C. A. O., Morata, J. A. Hernando, Herrero-Gómez, P., Herrero, V., Ho, P., Ifergan, Y., Jones, B. J. P., Kekic, M., Labarga, L., Larizgoitia, L., Lebrun, P., Gutierrez, D. Lopez, López-March, N., Madigan, R., Mano, R. D. P., Martín-Albo, J., Martínez-Lema, G., Martínez-Vara, M., Marques, A. P., Meziani, Z. E., Miller, R., Mistry, K., Molina-Canteras, J., Monrabal, F., Monteiro, C. M. B., Mora, F. J., Vidal, J. Muñoz, Navarro, K., Novella, P., Nuñez, A., Nygren, D. R., Oblak, E., Odriozola-Gimeno, M., Palmeiro, B., Para, A., Querol, M., Redwine, A. B., Renner, J., Rivilla, I., Rodríguez, J., Rogero, C., Rogers, L., Romeo, B., Romo-Luque, C., Santos, F. P., Santos, J. M. F. dos, Simón, A., Sorel, M., Teixeira, J. M. R., Toledo, J. F., Torrent, J., Usón, A., Veloso, J. F. C. A., Vuong, T. T., and Waiton, J.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, High Energy Physics - Experiment, Physics - Optics
Abstract

Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is an excellent diffuse reflector widely used in light collection systems for particle physics experiments. In noble element systems, it is often coated with tetraphenyl butadiene (TPB) to allow detection of vacuum ultraviolet scintillation light. In this work this dependence is investigated for PTFE coated with TPB in air for light of wavelengths of 200~nm, 260~nm, and 450~nm. The results show that TPB-coated PTFE has a reflectance of approximately 92\% for thicknesses ranging from 5~mm to 10~mm at 450~nm, with negligible variation as a function of thickness within this range. A cross-check of these results using an argon chamber supports the conclusion that the change in thickness from 5~mm to 10~mm does not affect significantly the light response at 128~nm. Our results indicate that pieces of TPB-coated PTFE thinner than the typical 10~mm can be used in particle physics detectors without compromising the light signal.

Published
2022
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23. Modeling Backgrounds for the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR

Author

Haufe, C. R., Arnquist, I. J., Avignone III, F. T., Barabash, A. S., Barton, C. J., Bhimani, K. H., Blalock, E., Bos, B., Busch, M., Buuck, M., Caldwell, T. S., Chan, Y-D., Christofferson, C. D., Chu, P. -H., Clark, M. L., Cuesta, C., Detwiler, J. A., Efremenko, Yu., Ejiri, H., Elliott, S. R., Giovanetti, G. K., Green, M. P., Gruszko, J., Guinn, I. S., Guiseppe, V. E., Henning, R., Aguilar, D. Hervas, Hoppe, E. W., Hostiuc, A., Kidd, M. F., Kim, I., Kouzes, R. T., Lannen V, T. E., Li, A., Lopez, A. M., López-Castaño, J. M., Martin, E. L., Martin, R. D., Massarczyk, R., Meijer, S. J., Oli, T. K., Othman, G., Paudel, L. S., Pettus, W., Poon, A. W. P., Radford, D. C., Reine, A. L., Rielage, K., Ruof, N. W., Schaper, D. C., Tedeschi, D., Varner, R. L., Vasilyev, S., Wilkerson, J. F., Wiseman, C., Xu, W., Yu, C. -H., and Zhu, B. X.

Subjects
Nuclear Experiment
Abstract

The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR is a neutrinoless double-beta decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$) experiment containing $\sim$30 kg of p-type point contact germanium detectors enriched to 88% in 76Ge and $\sim$14 kg of natural germanium detectors. The detectors are housed in two electroformed copper cryostats and surrounded by a graded passive shield with active muon veto. An extensive radioassay campaign was performed prior to installation to insure the use of ultra-clean materials. The DEMONSTRATOR achieved one of the lowest background rates in the region of the $0\nu\beta\beta$ Q-value, 15.7 $\pm$ 1.4 cts/(FWHM t y) from the low-background configuration spanning most of the 64.5 kg-yr active exposure. Nevertheless this background rate is a factor of five higher than the projected background rate. This discrepancy arises from an excess of events from the 232Th decay chain. Background model fits aim to understand this deviation from assay-based projections, potentially determine the source(s) of observed backgrounds, and allow a precision measurement of the two-neutrino double-beta decay half-life. The fits agree with earlier simulation studies, which indicate the origin of the 232Th excess is not from a near-detector component and have informed design decisions for the next-generation LEGEND experiment. Recent findings have narrowed the suspected locations for the excess activity, motivating a final simulation and assay campaign to complete the background model., Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, Proceedings from the Low Radioactivity Techniques Workshop 2022 in Rapid City, SD, USA

Published
2022

24. Performance of novel VUV-sensitive Silicon Photo-Multipliers for nEXO

Author

Gallina, G., Guan, Y., Retiere, F., Cao, G., Bolotnikov, A., Kotov, I., Rescia, S., Soma, A. K., Tsang, T., Darroch, L., Brunner, T., Bolster, J., Cohen, J. R., Franco, T. Pinto, Gillis, W. C., Smalley, H. Peltz, Thibado, S., Pocar, A., Bhat, A., Jamil, A., Moore, D. C., Adhikari, G., Kharusi, S. Al, Angelico, E., Arnquist, I. J., Arsenault, P., Badhrees, I., Bane, J., Belov, V., Bernard, E. P., Bhatta, T., Brodsky, J. P., Brown, E., Caden, E., Cao, L., Chambers, C., Chana, B., Charlebois, S. A., Chernyak, D., Chiu, M., Cleveland, B., Collister, R., Cvitan, M., Dalmasson, J., Daniels, T., Deslandes, K., DeVoe, R., di Vacri, M. L., Ding, Y., Dolinski, M. J., Dragone, A., Echevers, J., Eckert, B., Elbeltagi, M., Fabris, L., Fairbank, W., Farine, J., Fu, Y. S., Gallacher, D., Gautam, P., Giacomini, G., Gingras, C., Goeldi, D., Gornea, R., Gratta, G., Hardy, C. A., Hedges, S., Heffner, M., Hein, E., Holt, J., Hoppe, E. W., Hößl, J., House, A., Hunt, W., Iverson, A., Jiang, X. S., Karelin, A., Kaufman, L. J., Krücken, R., Kuchenkov, A., Kumar, K. S., Larson, A., Leach, K. G., Lenardo, B. G., Leonard, D. S., Lessard, G., Li, G., Li, S., Li, Z., Licciardi, C., Lindsay, R., MacLellan, R., Mahtab, M., Majidi, S., Malbrunot, C., Margetak, P., Martel-Dion, P., Martin, L., Masbou, J., Massacret, N., McMichael, K., Mong, B., Murray, K., Nattress, J., Natzke, C. R., Ngwadla, X. E., Ondze, J. C. Nzobadila, Odian, A., Orrell, J. L., Ortega, G. S., Overman, C. T., Parent, S., Perna, A., Piepke, A., Pletskova, N., Pratte, J. F., Radeka, V., Raguzin, E., Ramonnye, G. J., Rao, T., Rasiwala, H., Raymond, K., Rebeiro, B. M., Richardson, G., Ringuette, J., Riot, V., Rossignol, T., Rowson, P. C., Rudolph, L., Saldanha, R., Sangiorgio, S., Shang, X., Spadoni, F., Stekhanov, V., Sun, X. L., Tidball, A., Totev, T., Triambak, S., Tsang, R. H. M., Tyuka, O. A., Vachon, F., Vidal, M., Viel, S., Visser, G., Wagenpfeil, M., Walent, M., Wamba, K., Wang, Q., Wang, W., Wang, Y., Watts, M., Wei, W., Wen, L. J., Wichoski, U., Wilde, S., Worcester, M., Wu, W. H., Wu, X., Xie, L., Yan, W., Yang, H., Yang, L., Zeldovich, O., Zhao, J., and Ziegler, T.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

Liquid xenon time projection chambers are promising detectors to search for neutrinoless double beta decay (0$\nu \beta \beta$), due to their response uniformity, monolithic sensitive volume, scalability to large target masses, and suitability for extremely low background operations. The nEXO collaboration has designed a tonne-scale time projection chamber that aims to search for 0$\nu \beta \beta$ of \ce{^{136}Xe} with projected half-life sensitivity of $1.35\times 10^{28}$~yr. To reach this sensitivity, the design goal for nEXO is $\leq$1\% energy resolution at the decay $Q$-value ($2458.07\pm 0.31$~keV). Reaching this resolution requires the efficient collection of both the ionization and scintillation produced in the detector. The nEXO design employs Silicon Photo-Multipliers (SiPMs) to detect the vacuum ultra-violet, 175 nm scintillation light of liquid xenon. This paper reports on the characterization of the newest vacuum ultra-violet sensitive Fondazione Bruno Kessler VUVHD3 SiPMs specifically designed for nEXO, as well as new measurements on new test samples of previously characterised Hamamatsu VUV4 Multi Pixel Photon Counters (MPPCs). Various SiPM and MPPC parameters, such as dark noise, gain, direct crosstalk, correlated avalanches and photon detection efficiency were measured as a function of the applied over voltage and wavelength at liquid xenon temperature (163~K). The results from this study are used to provide updated estimates of the achievable energy resolution at the decay $Q$-value for the nEXO design.

Published
2022
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25. Charge Trapping and Energy Performance of the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR

Author

Arnquist, I. J., Avignone III, F. T., Barabash, A. S., Barton, C. J., Bhimani, K. H., Blalock, E., Bos, B., Busch, M., Buuck, M., Caldwell, T. S., Chan, Y-D., Christofferson, C. D., Chu, P. -H., Clark, M. L., Cuesta, C., Detwiler, J. A., Efremenko, Yu., Ejiri, H., Elliott, S. R., Giovanetti, G. K., Green, M. P., Gruszko, J., Guinn, I. S., Guiseppe, V. E., Haufe, C. R., Henning, R., Aguilar, D. Hervas, Hoppe, E. W., Hostiuc, A., Kidd, M. F., Kim, I., Kouzes, R. T., Lannen V, T. E., Li, A., López-Castaño, J. M., Martin, E. L., Martin, R. D., Massarczyk, R., Meijer, S. J., Mertens, S., Oli, T. K., Othman, G., Paudel, L. S., Pettus, W., Poon, A. W. P., Radford, D. C., Reine, A. L., Rielage, K., Ruof, N. W., Schaper, D. C., Tedeschi, D., Varner, R. L., Vasilyev, S., Wilkerson, J. F., Wiseman, C., Xu, W., Yu, C. -H., and Zhu, B. X.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

P-type point contact (PPC) high-purity germanium detectors are an important technology in astroparticle and nuclear physics due to their superb energy resolution, low noise, and pulse shape discrimination capabilities. Analysis of data from the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, a neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment deploying PPC detectors enriched in $^{76}$Ge, has led to several novel improvements in the analysis of PPC signals. In this work we discuss charge trapping in PPC detectors and its effect on energy resolution. Small dislocations or impurities in the crystal lattice result in trapping of charge carriers from an ionization event of interest, attenuating the signal and degrading the measured energy. We present a modified digital pole-zero correction to the signal energy estimation that counters the effects of charge trapping and improves the energy resolution of the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR by approximately 30% to around 2.4 keV FWHM at 2039 keV, the $^{76}$Ge $Q$-value. An alternative approach achieving similar resolution enhancement is also presented., Comment: 12 pages, 13 figures

Published
2022
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26. Interpretable Boosted Decision Tree Analysis for the Majorana Demonstrator

Author

Arnquist, I. J., Avignone III, F. T., Barabash, A. S., Barton, C. J., Bhimani, K. H., Blalock, E., Bos, B., Busch, M., Buuck, M., Caldwell, T. S., Chan, Y -D., Christofferson, C. D., Chu, P. -H., Clark, M. L., Cuesta, C., Detwiler, J. A., Efremenko, Yu., Elliott, S. R., Giovanetti, G. K., Green, M. P., Gruszko, J., Guinn, I. S., Guiseppe, V. E., Haufe, C. R., Henning, R., Aguilar, D. Hervas, Hoppe, E. W., Hostiuc, A., Kidd, M. F., Kim, I., Kouzes, R. T., Lannen V, T. E., Li, A., Lopez-Castano, J. M., Martin, E. L., Martin, R. D., Massarczyk, R., Meijer, S. J., Oli, T. K., Othman, G., Paudel, L. S., Pettus, W., Poon, A. W. P., Radford, D. C., Reine, A. L., Rielage, K., Ruof, N. W., Schaper, D. C., Tedeschi, D., Varner, R. L., Vasilyev, S., Wilkerson, J. F., Wiseman, C., Xu, W., and Yu, C. -H.

Subjects
Physics - Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability, Computer Science - Machine Learning, Nuclear Experiment
Abstract

The Majorana Demonstrator is a leading experiment searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay with high purity germanium detectors (HPGe). Machine learning provides a new way to maximize the amount of information provided by these detectors, but the data-driven nature makes it less interpretable compared to traditional analysis. An interpretability study reveals the machine's decision-making logic, allowing us to learn from the machine to feedback to the traditional analysis. In this work, we have presented the first machine learning analysis of the data from the Majorana Demonstrator; this is also the first interpretable machine learning analysis of any germanium detector experiment. Two gradient boosted decision tree models are trained to learn from the data, and a game-theory-based model interpretability study is conducted to understand the origin of the classification power. By learning from data, this analysis recognizes the correlations among reconstruction parameters to further enhance the background rejection performance. By learning from the machine, this analysis reveals the importance of new background categories to reciprocally benefit the standard Majorana analysis. This model is highly compatible with next-generation germanium detector experiments like LEGEND since it can be simultaneously trained on a large number of detectors., Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures

Published
2022
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27. Final Result of the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR's Search for Neutrinoless Double-$\beta$ Decay in $^{76}$Ge

Author

Arnquist, I. J., Avignone III, F. T., Barabash, A. S., Barton, C. J., Barton, P. J., Bhimani, K. H., Blalock, E., Bos, B., Busch, M., Buuck, M., Caldwell, T. S., Chan, Y-D., Christofferson, C. D., Chu, P. -H., Clark, M. L., Cuesta, C., Detwiler, J. A., Efremenko, Yu., Ejiri, H., Elliott, S. R., Giovanetti, G. K., Green, M. P., Gruszko, J., Guinn, I. S., Guiseppe, V. E., Haufe, C. R., Henning, R., Aguilar, D. Hervas, Hoppe, E. W., Hostiuc, A., Kidd, M. F., Kim, I., Kouzes, R. T., Lannen V, T. E., Li, A., Lopez, A. M., López-Castaño, J. M., Martin, E. L., Martin, R. D., Massarczyk, R., Meijer, S. J., Mertens, S., Oli, T. K., Othman, G., Paudel, L. S., Pettus, W., Poon, A. W. P., Radford, D. C., Reine, A. L., Rielage, K., Ruof, N. W., Schaper, D. C., Tedeschi, D., Varner, R. L., Vasilyev, S., Wilkerson, J. F., Wiseman, C., Xu, W., Yu, C. -H., and Zhu, B. X.

Subjects
Nuclear Experiment, High Energy Physics - Experiment, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR searched for neutrinoless double-$\beta$ decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$) of $^{76}$Ge using modular arrays of high-purity Ge detectors operated in vacuum cryostats in a low-background shield. The arrays operated with up to 40.4 kg of detectors (27.2 kg enriched to $\sim$88\% in $^{76}$Ge). From these measurements, the DEMONSTRATOR has accumulated 64.5 kg yr of enriched active exposure. With a world-leading energy resolution of 2.52 keV FWHM at the 2039 keV $Q_{\beta\beta}$ (0.12\%), we set a half-life limit of $0\nu\beta\beta$ in $^{76}$Ge at $T_{1/2}>8.3\times10^{25}$ yr (90\% C.L.). This provides a range of upper limits on $m_{\beta\beta}$ of $(113-269)$ meV (90\% C.L.), depending on the choice of nuclear matrix elements., Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures

Published
2022
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28. Exotic dark matter search with the Majorana Demonstrator

Author

Arnquist, I. J., Avignone III, F. T., Barabash, A. S., Barton, C. J., Bhimani, K. H., Blalock, E., Bos, B., Busch, M., Buuck, M., Caldwell, T. S., Chan, Y-D., Christofferson, C. D., Chu, P. -H., Clark, M. L., Cuesta, C., Detwiler, J. A., Efremenko, Yu., Ejiri, H., Elliott, S. R., Giovanetti, G. K., Green, M. P., Gruszko, J., Guinn, I. S., Guiseppe, V. E., Haufe, C. R., Henning, R., Aguilar, D. Hervas, Hoppe, E. W., Hostiuc, A., Kidd, M. F., Kim, I., Kouzes, R. T., Lannen V, T. E., Li, A., Lopez, A. M., López-Castaño, J. M., Martin, E. L., Martin, R. D., Massarczyk, R., Meijer, S. J., Mertens, S., Oli, T. K., Othman, G., Paudel, L. S., Pettus, W., Poon, A. W. P., Radford, D. C., Reine, A. L., Rielage, K., Ruof, N. W., Schaper, D. C., Tedeschi, D., Varner, R. L., Vasilyev, S., Wilkerson, J. F., Wiseman, C., Xu, W., Yu, C. -H., and Zhu, B. X.

Subjects
High Energy Physics - Experiment, High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Abstract

With excellent energy resolution and ultra-low level radiogenic backgrounds, the high-purity germanium detectors in the Majorana Demonstrator enable searches for several classes of exotic dark matter (DM) models. In this work, we report new experimental limits on keV-scale sterile neutrino DM via the transition magnetic moment from conversion to active neutrinos, $\nu_s \rightarrow \nu_a$. We report new limits on fermionic dark matter absorption ($\chi + A \rightarrow \nu + A$) and sub-GeV DM-nucleus 3$\rightarrow$2 scattering ($\chi + \chi + A \rightarrow \phi + A$), and new exclusion limits for bosonic dark matter (axionlike particles and dark photons). These searches utilize the (1--100)-keV low energy region of a 37.5-kg y exposure collected by the Demonstrator between May 2016 and November 2019, using a set of $^{76}$Ge-enriched detectors whose surface exposure time was carefully controlled, resulting in extremely low levels of cosmogenic activation., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures

Published
2022
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29. Search for solar axions via axion-photon coupling with the Majorana Demonstrator

Author

Arnquist, I. J., Avignone III, F. T., Barabash, A. S., Barton, C. J., Bhimani, K. H., Blalock, E., Bos, B., Busch, M., Buuck, M., Caldwell, T. S., Chan, Y-D., Christofferson, C. D., Chu, P. -H., Clark, M. L., Cuesta, C., Detwiler, J. A., Efremenko, Yu., Ejiri, H., Elliott, S. R., Giovanetti, G. K., Green, M. P., Gruszko, J., Guinn, I. S., Guiseppe, V. E., Haufe, C. R., Henning, R., Aguilar, D. Hervas, Hoppe, E. W., Hostiuc, A., Kidd, M. F., Kim, I., Kouzes, R. T., Lannen V, T. E., Li, A., Lopez, A. M., López-Castaño, J. M., Martin, E. L., Martin, R. D., Massarczyk, R., Meijer, S. J., Oli, T. K., Othman, G., Paudel, L. S., Pettus, W., Poon, A. W. P., Radford, D. C., Reine, A. L., Rielage, K., Ruof, N. W., Schaper, D. C., Tedeschi, D., Varner, R. L., Vasilyev, S., Wilkerson, J. F., Wiseman, C., Xu, W., Yu, C. -H., and Zhu, B. X.

Subjects
Nuclear Experiment, High Energy Physics - Experiment
Abstract

Axions were originally proposed to explain the strong-CP problem in QCD. Through the axion-photon coupling, the Sun could be a major source of axions, which could be measured in solid state detection experiments with enhancements due to coherent Primakoff-Bragg scattering. The Majorana Demonstrator experiment has searched for solar axions with a set of $^{76}$Ge-enriched high purity germanium detectors using a 33 kg-yr exposure collected between Jan. 2017 and Nov. 2019. A temporal-energy analysis gives a new limit on the axion-photon coupling as $g_{a\gamma}<1.45\times 10^{-9}$ GeV$^{-1}$ (95% C.I.) for axions with mass up to 100 eV/$c^2$. This improves laboratory-based limits between about 1 eV/$c^2$ and 100 eV/$c^2$., Comment: Minor updates to match published version

Published
2022
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30. Demonstration of event position reconstruction based on diffusion in the NEXT-white detector

Author

Haefner, J., Navarro, K. E., Guenette, R., Jones, B. J. P., Tripathi, A., Adams, C., Almazán, H., Álvarez, V., Aparicio, B., Aranburu, A. I., Arazi, L., Arnquist, I. J., Auria-Luna, F., Ayet, S., Azevedo, C. D. R., Bailey, K., Ballester, F., Barrio-Torregrosa, M. del, Bayo, A., Benlloch-Rodríguez, J. M., Borges, F. I. G. M., Brodolin, A., Byrnes, N., Cárcel, S., Carrión, J. V., Cebrián, S., Church, E., Cid, L., Conde, C. A. N., Contreras, T., Cossío, F. P., Dey, E., Díaz, G., Dickel, T., Elorza, M., Escada, J., Esteve, R., Felkai, R., Fernandes, L. M. P., Ferrario, P., Ferreira, A. L., Foss, F. W., Freitas, E. D. C., Freixa, Z., Generowicz, J., Goldschmidt, A., Gómez-Cadenas, J. J., González, R., Grocott, J., Hafidi, K., Hauptman, J., Henriques, C. A. O., Morata, J. A. Hernando, Herrero-Gómez, P., Herrero, V., Hervés Carrete, C., Ifergan, Y., Labarga, L., Larizgoitia, L., Larumbe, A., Lebrun, P., Lopez, F., López-March, N., Madigan, R., Mano, R. D. P., Marques, A. P., Martín-Albo, J., Martínez-Lema, G., Martínez-Vara, M., Meziani, Z. E., Miller, R. L., Mistry, K., Molina-Canteras, J., Monrabal, F., Monteiro, C. M. B., Mora, F. J., Muñoz Vidal, J., Novella, P., Nuñez, A., Nygren, D. R., Oblak, E., Palacio, J., Palmeiro, B., Para, A., Parmaksiz, I., Pelegrin, J., Pérez Maneiro, M., Querol, M., Redwine, A. B., Renner, J., Rivilla, I., Rodríguez, J., Rogero, C., Rogers, L., Romeo, B., Romo-Luque, C., Santos, F. P., dos Santos, J. M. F., Shomroni, I., Simón, A., Soleti, S. R., Sorel, M., Soto-Oton, J., Teixeira, J. M. R., Toledo, J. F., Torrent, J., Trettin, A., Usón, A., Veloso, J. F. C. A., Waiton, J., and White, J. T.

Published
2024
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31. Effective Field Theory Analysis of CDMSlite Run 2 Data

Author

SuperCDMS Collaboration, Albakry, M. F., Alkhatib, I., Amaral, D. W. P., Aralis, T., Aramaki, T., Arnquist, I. J., Langroudy, I. Ataee, Azadbakht, E., Banik, S., Bathurst, C., Bauer, D. A., Bezerra, L. V. S., Bhattacharyya, R., Brink, P. L., Bunker, R., Cabrera, B., Calkins, R., Cameron, R. A., Cartaro, C., Cerdeño, D. G., Chang, Y. -Y., Chaudhuri, M., Chen, R., Chott, N., Cooley, J., Coombes, H., Corbett, J., Cushman, P., De Brienne, F., Dharani, S., di Vacri, M. L., Diamond, M. D., Fascione, E., Figueroa-Feliciano, E., Fink, C. W., Fouts, K., Fritts, M., Gerbier, G., Germond, R., Ghaith, M., Golwala, S. R., Hall, J., Hassan, N., Hines, B. A., Hollister, M. I., Hong, Z., Hoppe, E. W., Hsu, L., Huber, M. E., Iyer, V., Jastram, A., Kashyap, V. K. S., Kelsey, M. H., Kubik, A., Kurinsky, N. A., Lawrence, R. E., Lee, M., Li, A., Liu, J., Liu, Y., Loer, B., Lukens, P., MacFarlane, D. B., Mahapatra, R., Mandic, V., Mast, N., Mayer, A. J., Theenhausen, H. Meyer zu, Michaud, É., Michielin, E., Mirabolfathi, N., Mohanty, B., Nagorny, S., Nelson, J., Neog, H., Novati, V., Orrell, J. L., Osborne, M. D., Oser, S. M., Page, W. A., Partridge, R., Pedreros, D. S., Podviianiuk, R., Ponce, F., Poudel, S., Pradeep, A., Pyle, M., Rau, W., Reid, E., Ren, R., Reynolds, T., Roberts, A., Robinson, A. E., Rogers, H. E., Saab, T., Sadoulet, B., Saikia, I., Sander, J., Sattari, A., Schmidt, B., Schnee, R. W., Scorza, S., Serfass, B., Poudel, S. S., Sincavage, D. J., Stanford, C., Street, J., Sun, H., Thasrawala, F. K., Toback, D., Underwood, R., Verma, S., Villano, A. N., von Krosigk, B., Watkins, S. L., Wen, O., Williams, Z., Wilson, M. J., Winchell, J., Wykoff, K., Yellin, S., Young, B. A., Yu, T. C., Zatschler, B., Zatschler, S., Zaytsev, A., Zhang, E., Zheng, L., and Zuber, S.

Subjects
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, High Energy Physics - Experiment
Abstract

CDMSlite Run 2 was a search for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) with a cryogenic 600 g Ge detector operated in a high-voltage mode to optimize sensitivity to WIMPs of relatively low mass from 2 - 20 GeV/$c^2$. In this article, we present an effective field theory (EFT) analysis of the CDMSlite Run 2 data using an extended energy range and a comprehensive treatment of the expected background. A binned likelihood Bayesian analysis was performed on the recoil energy data, taking into account the parameters of the EFT interactions and optimizing the data selection with respect to the dominant background components. Energy regions within 5$\sigma$ of known activation peaks were removed from the analysis. The Bayesian evidences resulting from the different operator hypotheses show that the CDMSlite Run 2 data are consistent with the background-only models and do not allow for a signal interpretation assuming any additional EFT interaction. Consequently, upper limits on the WIMP mass and coupling-coefficient amplitudes and phases are presented for each EFT operator. These limits improve previous CDMSlite Run 2 bounds for WIMP masses above 5 GeV/$c^2$., Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures

Published
2022

32. Determining the bubble nucleation efficiency of low-energy nuclear recoils in superheated C$_3$F$_8$ dark matter detectors

Author

Ali, B., Arnquist, I. J., Baxter, D., Behnke, E., Bressler, M., Broerman, B., Clark, K., Collar, J. I., Cooper, P. S., Cripe, C., Crisler, M., Dahl, C. E., Das, M., Durnford, D., Fallows, S., Farine, J., Filgas, R., García-Viltres, A., Girard, F., Giroux, G., Harris, O., Hoppe, E. W., Jackson, C. M., Jin, M., Krauss, C. B., Kumar, V., Lafreniere, M., Laurin, M., Lawson, I., Leblanc, A., Leng, H., Levine, I., Licciardi, C., Linden, S., Mitra, P., Monette, V., Moore, C., Neilson, R., Noble, A. J., Nozard, H., Pal, S., Piro, M. -C., Plante, A., Priya, S., Rethmeier, C., Robinson, A. E., Savoie, J., Scallon, O., Sonnenschein, A., Starinski, N., Štekl, I., Tiwari, D., Tardif, F., Vázquez-Jáuregui, E., Wichoski, U., Zacek, V., and Zhang, J.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract

The bubble nucleation efficiency of low-energy nuclear recoils in superheated liquids plays a crucial role in interpreting results from direct searches for weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter. The PICO Collaboration presents the results of the efficiencies for bubble nucleation from carbon and fluorine recoils in superheated C$_3$F$_8$ from calibration data taken with 5 distinct neutron spectra at various thermodynamic thresholds ranging from 2.1 keV to 3.9 keV. Instead of assuming any particular functional forms for the nuclear recoil efficiency, a generalized piecewise linear model is proposed with systematic errors included as nuisance parameters to minimize model-introduced uncertainties. A Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo (MCMC) routine is applied to sample the nuclear recoil efficiency for fluorine and carbon at 2.45 keV and 3.29 keV thermodynamic thresholds simultaneously. The nucleation efficiency for fluorine was found to be $\geq 50\, \%$ for nuclear recoils of 3.3 keV (3.7 keV) at a thermodynamic Seitz threshold of 2.45 keV (3.29 keV), and for carbon the efficiency was found to be $\geq 50\, \%$ for recoils of 10.6 keV (11.1 keV) at a threshold of 2.45 keV (3.29 keV). Simulated data sets are used to calculate a p-value for the fit, confirming that the model used is compatible with the data. The fit paradigm is also assessed for potential systematic biases, which although small, are corrected for. Additional steps are performed to calculate the expected interaction rates of WIMPs in the PICO-60 detector, a requirement for calculating WIMP exclusion limits., Comment: 17 pages, 22 figures, 5 tables

Published
2022
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33. Results on photon-mediated dark matter-nucleus interactions from the PICO-60 C$_{3}$F$_{8}$ bubble chamber

Author

Ali, B., Arnquist, I. J., Baxter, D., Behnke, E., Bressler, M., Broerman, B., Chen, C. J., Clark, K., Collar, J. I., Cooper, P. S., Cripe, C., Crisler, M., Dahl, C. E., Das, M., Durnford, D., Fallows, S., Farine, J., Filgas, R., García-Viltres, A., Giroux, G., Harris, O., Hillier, T., Hoppe, E. W., Jackson, C. M., Jin, M., Krauss, C. B., Kumar, V., Laurin, M., Lawson, I., Leblanc, A., Leng, H., Levine, I., Licciardi, C., Linden, S., Mitra, P., Monette, V., Moore, C., Neilson, R., Noble, A. J., Nozard, H., Pal, S., Piro, M. -C., Plante, A., Priya, S., Rethmeier, C., Robinson, A. E., Savoie, J., Sonnenschein, A., Starinski, N., Štekl, I., Tiwari, D., Vázquez-Jáuregui, E., Wichoski, U., Zacek, V., and Zhang, J.

Subjects
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, High Energy Physics - Experiment, High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Abstract

Many compelling models predict dark matter coupling to the electromagnetic current through higher multipole interactions, while remaining electrically neutral. Different multipole couplings have been studied, among them anapole moment, electric and magnetic dipole moments, and millicharge. This study sets limits on the couplings for these photon-mediated interactions using non-relativistic contact operators in an effective field theory framework. Using data from the PICO-60 bubble chamber leading limits for dark matter masses between 2.7 GeV/c$^2$ and 24 GeV/c$^2$ are reported for the coupling of these photon-mediated dark matter-nucleus interactions. The detector was filled with 52 kg of C$_3$F$_8$ operating at thermodynamic thresholds of 2.45 keV and 3.29 keV, reaching exposures of 1404 kg-day and 1167 kg-day, respectively.

Published
2022
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34. Investigating the sources of low-energy events in a SuperCDMS-HVeV detector

Author

SuperCDMS Collaboration, Albakry, M. F., Alkhatib, I., Amaral, D. W. P., Aralis, T., Aramaki, T., Arnquist, I. J., Langroudy, I. Ataee, Azadbakht, E., Banik, S., Bathurst, C., Bauer, D. A., Bhattacharyya, R., Brink, P. L., Bunker, R., Cabrera, B., Calkins, R., Cameron, R. A., Cartaro, C., Cerdeño, D. G., Chang, Y. -Y., Chaudhuri, M., Chen, R., Chott, N., Cooley, J., Coombes, H., Corbett, J., Cushman, P., De Brienne, F., Dharani, S., di Vacri, M. L., Diamond, M. D., Fascione, E., Figueroa-Feliciano, E., Fink, C. W., Fouts, K., Fritts, M., Gerbier, G., Germond, R., Ghaith, M., Golwala, S. R., Hall, J., Hassan, N., Hines, B. A., Hollister, M. I., Hong, Z., Hoppe, E. W., Hsu, L., Huber, M. E., Iyer, V., Jastram, A., Kashyap, V. K. S., Kelsey, M. H., Kubik, A., Kurinsky, N. A., Lawrence, R. E., Lee, M., Li, A., Liu, J., Liu, Y., Loer, B., Asamar, E. Lopez, Lukens, P., MacFarlane, D. B., Mahapatra, R., Mandic, V., Mast, N., Mayer, A. J., Theenhausen, H. Meyer zu, Michaud, É., Michielin, E., Mirabolfathi, N., Mohanty, B., Nagorny, S., Nelson, J., Neog, H., Novati, V., Orrell, J. L., Osborne, M. D., Oser, S. M., Page, W. A., Partridge, R., Pedreros, D. S., Podviianiuk, R., Ponce, F., Poudel, S., Pradeep, A., Pyle, M., Rau, W., Reid, E., Ren, R., Reynolds, T., Roberts, A., Robinson, A. E., Saab, T., Sadoulet, B., Saikia, I., Sander, J., Sattari, A., Schmidt, B., Schnee, R. W., Scorza, S., Serfass, B., Poudel, S. S., Sincavage, D. J., Stanford, C., Street, J., Sun, H., Thasrawala, F. K., Toback, D., Underwood, R., Verma, S., Villano, A. N., von Krosigk, B., Watkins, S. L., Wen, O., Williams, Z., Wilson, M. J., Winchell, J., Wykoff, K., Yellin, S., Young, B. A., Yu, T. C., Zatschler, B., Zatschler, S., Zaytsev, A., Zhang, E., Zheng, L., and Zuber, S.

Subjects
High Energy Physics - Experiment, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

Recent experiments searching for sub-GeV/$c^2$ dark matter have observed event excesses close to their respective energy thresholds. Although specific to the individual technologies, the measured excess event rates have been consistently reported at or below event energies of a few-hundred eV, or with charges of a few electron-hole pairs. In the present work, we operated a 1-gram silicon SuperCDMS-HVeV detector at three voltages across the crystal (0 V, 60 V and 100 V). The 0 V data show an excess of events in the tens of eV region. Despite this event excess, we demonstrate the ability to set a competitive exclusion limit on the spin-independent dark matter--nucleon elastic scattering cross section for dark matter masses of $\mathcal{O}(100)$ MeV/$c^2$, enabled by operation of the detector at 0 V potential and achievement of a very low $\mathcal{O}(10)$ eV threshold for nuclear recoils. Comparing the data acquired at 0 V, 60 V and 100 V potentials across the crystal, we investigated possible sources of the unexpected events observed at low energy. The data indicate that the dominant contribution to the excess is consistent with a hypothesized luminescence from the printed circuit boards used in the detector holder.

Published
2022
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35. Experimental study of 13C({\alpha},n)16O reactions in the Majorana Demonstrator calibration data

Author

MAJORANA Collaboration, Arnquist, I. J., Avignone III, F. T., Barabash, A. S., Barton, C. J., Bhimani, K. H., Blalock, E., Bos, B., Busch, M., Buuck, M., Caldwell, T. S., Chan, Y-D., Christofferson, C. D., Chu, P. -H., Clark, M. L., Cuesta, C., Detwiler, J. A., Efremenko, Yu., Ejiri, H., Elliott, S. R., Giovanetti, G. K., Green, M. P., Gruszko, J., Guinn, I. S., Guiseppe, V. E., Haufe, C. R., Henning, R., Aguilar, D. Hervas, Hoppe, E. W., Hostiuc, A., Kidd, M. F., Kim, I., Kouzes, R. T., Lannen V, T. E., Li, A., Lopez, A. M., Lopez-Castano, J. M., Martin, E. L., Martin, R. D., Massarczyk, R., Meijer, S. J., Oli, T. K., Othman, G., Paudel, L. S., Pettus, W., Poon, A. W. P., Radford, D. C., Reine, A. L., Rielage, K., Ruof, N. W., Tedeschi, D., Varner, R. L., Vasilyev, S., Wilkerson, J. F., Wiseman, C., Xu, W., Yu, C. -H., and Zhu, B. X.

Subjects
Nuclear Experiment, High Energy Physics - Experiment, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

Neutron captures and delayed decays of reaction products are common sources of backgrounds in ultra-rare event searches. In this work, we studied $^{13}$C($\alpha,n)^{16}$O reactions induced by $\alpha$-particles emitted within the calibration sources of the \textsc{Majorana Demonstrator}. These sources are thorium-based calibration standards enclosed in carbon-rich materials. The reaction rate was estimated by using the 6129-keV $\gamma$-rays emitted from the excited $^{16}$O states that are populated when the incoming $\alpha$-particles exceed the reaction Q-value. Thanks to the excellent energy performance of the \textsc{Demonstrator}'s germanium detectors, these characteristic photons can be clearly observed in the calibration data. Facilitated by \textsc{Geant4} simulations, a comparison between the observed 6129-keV photon rates and predictions by a TALYS-based software was performed. The measurements and predictions were found to be consistent, albeit with large statistical uncertainties. This agreement provides support for background projections from ($\alpha,n$)-reactions in future double-beta decay search efforts., Comment: Published version

Published
2022
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36. A Strategy for Low-Mass Dark Matter Searches with Cryogenic Detectors in the SuperCDMS SNOLAB Facility

Author

SuperCDMS Collaboration, Albakry, M. F., Alkhatib, I., Amaral, D. W. P., Aralis, T., Aramaki, T., Arnquist, I. J., Langroudy, I. Ataee, Azadbakht, E., Banik, S., Bathurst, C., Bauer, D. A., Bhattacharyya, R., Brink, P. L., Bunker, R., Cabrera, B., Calkins, R., Cameron, R. A., Cartaro, C., Cerdeno, D. G., Chang, Y. -Y., Chaudhuri, M., Chen, R., Chott, N., Cooley, J., Coombes, H., Corbett, J., Cushman, P., De Brienne, F., Dharani, S., di Vacri, M. L., Diamond, M. D., Fascione, E., Figueroa-Feliciano, E., Fink, C. W., Fouts, K., Fritts, M., Gerbier, G., Germond, R., Ghaith, M., Golwala, S. R., Hall, J., Hassan, N., Hines, B. A., Hollister, M. I., Hong, Z., Hoppe, E. W., Hsu, L., Huber, M. E., Iyer, V., Jastram, A., Kashyap, V. K. S., Kelsey, M. H., Kubik, A., Kurinsky, N. A., Lawrence, R. E., Lee, M., Li, A., Liu, J., Liu, Y., Loer, B., Lukens, P., MacFarlane, D. B., Mahapatra, R., Mandic, V., Mast, N., Mayer, A. J., Theenhausen, H. Meyer zu, Michaud, E., Michielin, E., Mirabolfathi, N., Mohanty, B., Nagorny, S., Nelson, J., Neog, H., Novati, V., Orrell, J. L., Osborne, M. D., Oser, S. M., Page, W. A., Partridge, R., Pedreros, D. S., Podviianiuk, R., Ponce, F., Poudel, S., Pradeep, A., Pyle, M., Rau, W., Reid, E., Ren, R., Reynolds, T., Roberts, A., Robinson, A. E., Saab, T., Sadoulet, B., Saikia, I., Sander, J., Sattari, A., Schmidt, B., Schnee, R. W., Scorza, S., Serfass, B., Poudel, S. S., Sincavage, D. J., Stanford, C., Street, J., Sun, H., Thasrawala, F. K., Toback, D., Underwood, R., Verma, S., Villano, A. N., von Krosigk, B., Watkins, S. L., Wen, O., Williams, Z., Wilson, M. J., Winchell, J., Wyko, K., Yellin, S., Young, B. A., Yu, T. C., Zatschler, B., Zatschler, S., Zaytsev, A., Zhang, E., Zheng, L., and Zuber, S.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, High Energy Physics - Experiment, Nuclear Experiment
Abstract

The SuperCDMS Collaboration is currently building SuperCDMS SNOLAB, a dark matter search focused on nucleon-coupled dark matter in the 1-5 GeV/c$^2$ mass range. Looking to the future, the Collaboration has developed a set of experience-based upgrade scenarios, as well as novel directions, to extend the search for dark matter using the SuperCDMS technology in the SNOLAB facility. The experienced-based scenarios are forecasted to probe many square decades of unexplored dark matter parameter space below 5 GeV/c$^2$, covering over 6 decades in mass: 1-100 eV/c$^2$ for dark photons and axion-like particles, 1-100 MeV/c$^2$ for dark-photon-coupled light dark matter, and 0.05-5 GeV/c$^2$ for nucleon-coupled dark matter. They will reach the neutrino fog in the 0.5-5 GeV/c$^2$ mass range and test a variety of benchmark models and sharp targets. The novel directions involve greater departures from current SuperCDMS technology but promise even greater reach in the long run, and their development must begin now for them to be available in a timely fashion. The experienced-based upgrade scenarios rely mainly on dramatic improvements in detector performance based on demonstrated scaling laws and reasonable extrapolations of current performance. Importantly, these improvements in detector performance obviate significant reductions in background levels beyond current expectations for the SuperCDMS SNOLAB experiment. Given that the dominant limiting backgrounds for SuperCDMS SNOLAB are cosmogenically created radioisotopes in the detectors, likely amenable only to isotopic purification and an underground detector life-cycle from before crystal growth to detector testing, the potential cost and time savings are enormous and the necessary improvements much easier to prototype., Comment: contribution to Snowmass 2021; v2 updated (assorted corrections and improvements to forecasts) October 2022; v3 updated (corrected SuperCDMS SNOLAB sensitivity curves in upgrade forecast plots in body of text) April 2023

Published
2022

37. Search for charge nonconservation and Pauli exclusion principle violation with the Majorana Demonstrator

Author

MAJORANA Collaboration, Arnquist, I. J., Avignone III, F. T., Barabash, A. S., Barton, C. J., Bhimani, K. H., Blalock, E., Bos, B., Busch, M., Buuck, M., Caldwell, T. S., Chan, Y-D., Christofferson, C. D., Chu, P. -H., Clark, M. L., Cuesta, C., Detwiler, J. A., Efremenko, Yu., Ejiri, H., Elliott, S. R., Giovanetti, G. K., Green, M. P., Gruszko, J., Guinn, I. S., Guiseppe, V. E., Haufe, C. R., Henning, R., Aguilar, D. Hervas, Hoppe, E. W., Hostiuc, A., Kidd, M. F., Kim, I., Kouzes, R. T., Lannen V, T. E., Li, A., Lopez, A. M., López-Castaño, J. M., Martin, E. L., Martin, R. D., Massarczyk, R., Meijer, S. J., Oli, T. K., Paudel, L. S., Pettus, W., Poon, A. W. P., Radford, D. C., Reine, A. L., Rielage, K., Ruof, N. W., Schaper, D. C., Tedeschi, D., Varner, R. L., Vasilyev, S., Wilkerson, J. F., Wiseman, C., Xu, W., Yu, C. -H., and Zhu, B. X.

Subjects
Nuclear Experiment, High Energy Physics - Experiment
Abstract

Charge conservation and the Pauli exclusion principle (PEP) result from fundamental symmetries in the Standard Model, and are typically taken as axiomatic. High-precision tests for small violations of these symmetries could point to new physics. In this work we consider three models for violation of these processes which would produce detectable ionization in the high-purity germanium detectors of the Majorana Demonstrator. Using a 37.5 kg-yr exposure, we report a new lower limit on the electron mean lifetime of $\tau_e > 3.2 \times 10^{25}$ yr (90\% CL), the best result for this decay channel ($e \rightarrow \nu_e \overline{\nu_e} \nu_e$ or more generally $e \rightarrow \mathrm{invisibles}$) in more than two decades. We also present searches for two types of violation of the PEP, setting new limits on the probability of two electrons forming a symmetric quantum state. Using our $^{228}$Th calibration data set, which introduces electrons new to the system through electron-positron pair production, we obtain a world-leading model-independent limit for a terrestrial experiment of $\beta^2/2 < 1.0 \times 10^{-3}$ (99.7\% CL). Our 37.5 kg-yr exposure is also used to search for a process where an electron in an atomic system spontaneously violates the PEP, resulting in a model-dependent upper limit of $\beta^2/2 < 1.0 \times 10^{-48}$ (90\% CL).

Published
2022
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38. Ionization yield measurement in a germanium CDMSlite detector using photo-neutron sources

Author

SuperCDMS Collaboration, Albakry, M. F., Alkhatib, I., Amaral, D. W. P., Aralis, T., Aramaki, T., Arnquist, I. J., Langroudy, I. Ataee, Azadbakht, E., Banik, S., Bathurst, C., Bauer, D. A., Bezerra, L. V. S., Bhattacharyya, R., Bowles, M. A., Brink, P. L., Bunker, R., Cabrera, B., Calkins, R., Cameron, R. A., Cartaro, C., Cerdeño, D. G., Chang, Y. -Y., Chaudhuri, M., Chen, R., Chott, N., Cooley, J., Coombes, H., Corbett, J., Cushman, P., De Brienne, F., di Vacri, M. L., Diamond, M. D., Fascione, E., Figueroa-Feliciano, E., Fink, C. W., Fouts, K., Fritts, M., Gerbier, G., Germond, R., Ghaith, M., Golwala, S. R., Hall, J., Hines, B. A., Hollister, M. I., Hong, Z., Hoppe, E. W., Hsu, L., Huber, M. E., Iyer, V., Jastram, A., Kashyap, V. K. S., Kelsey, M. H., Kubik, A., Kurinsky, N. A., Lawrence, R. E., Lee, M., Li, A., Liu, J., Liu, Y., Loer, B., Lukens, P., MacDonell, D., MacFarlane, D. B., Mahapatra, R., Mandic, V., Mast, N., Mayer, A. J., Theenhausen, H. Meyer zu, Michaud, É., Michielin, E., Mirabolfathi, N., Mohanty, B., Mendoza, J. D. Morales, Nagorny, S., Nelson, J., Neog, H., Novati, V., Orrell, J. L., Osborne, M. D., Oser, S. M., Page, W. A., Partridge, R., Pedreros, D. S., Podviianiuk, R., Ponce, F., Poudel, S., Pradeep, A., Pyle, M., Rau, W., Reid, E., Ren, R., Reynolds, T., Roberts, A., Robinson, A. E., Saab, T., Sadoulet, B., Saikia, I., Sander, J., Sattari, A., Scarff, A., Schmidt, B., Schnee, R. W., Scorza, S., Serfass, B., Sincavage, D. J., Stanford, C., Street, J., Thasrawala, F. K., Toback, D., Underwood, R., Verma, S., Villano, A. N., von Krosigk, B., Watkins, S. L., Wen, O., Williams, Z., Wilson, M. J., Winchell, J., Wykoff, K., Yellin, S., Young, B. A., Yu, T. C., Zatschler, B., Zatschler, S., Zaytsev, A., Zhang, E., Zheng, L., and Zuber, S.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

Two photo-neutron sources, $^{88}$Y$^{9}$Be and $^{124}$Sb$^{9}$Be, have been used to investigate the ionization yield of nuclear recoils in the CDMSlite germanium detectors by the SuperCDMS collaboration. This work evaluates the yield for nuclear recoil energies between 1 keV and 7 keV at a temperature of $\sim$ 50 mK. We use a Geant4 simulation to model the neutron spectrum assuming a charge yield model that is a generalization of the standard Lindhard model and consists of two energy dependent parameters. We perform a likelihood analysis using the simulated neutron spectrum, modeled background, and experimental data to obtain the best fit values of the yield model. The ionization yield between recoil energies of 1 keV and 7 keV is shown to be significantly lower than predicted by the standard Lindhard model for germanium. There is a general lack of agreement among different experiments using a variety of techniques studying the low-energy range of the nuclear recoil yield, which is most critical for interpretation of direct dark matter searches. This suggests complexity in the physical process that many direct detection experiments use to model their primary signal detection mechanism and highlights the need for further studies to clarify underlying systematic effects that have not been well understood up to this point.

Published
2022
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39. Neutral Bremsstrahlung emission in xenon unveiled

Author

Henriques, C. A. O., Amedo, P., Teixeira, J. M. R., Gonzalez-Diaz, D., Azevedo, C. D. R., Para, A., Martin-Albo, J., Hernandez, A. Saa, Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., Nygren, D. R., Monteiro, C. M. B., Adams, C., Alvarez, V., Arazi, L., Arnquist, I. J., Bailey, K., Ballester, F., Benlloch-Rodriguez, J. M., Borges, F. I. G. M., Byrnes, N., Carcel, S., Carrion, J. V., Cebrian, S., Church, E., Conde, C. A. N., Contreras, T., Diaz, G., Diaz, J., Diesburg, M., Escada, J., Esteve, R., Felkai, R., Fernandes, A. F. M., Fernandes, L. M. P., Ferrario, P., Ferreira, A. L., Freitas, E. D. C., Generowicz, J., Ghosh, S., Goldschmidt, A., Guenette, R., Gutierrez, R. M., Haefner, J., Hafidi, K., Hauptman, J., Morata, J. A. Hernando, Herrero, P., Herrero, V., Ifergan, Y., Jones, B. J. P., Kekic, M., Labarga, L., Laing, A., Lebrun, P., Lopez-March, N., Losada, M., Mano, R. D. P., Martinez, A., Martinez-Vara, M., Martinez-Lema, G., McDonald, A. D., Monrabal, F., Mora, F. J., Vidal, J. Munoz, Novella, P., Palmeiro, B., Perez, J., Querol, M., Redwine, A. B., Renner, J., Repond, J., Riordan, S., Ripoll, L., Garcia, Y. Rodriguez, Rodriguez, J., Rogers, L., Romeo, B., Romo-Luque, C., Santos, F. P., Santos, J. M. F. dos, Simon, A., Sofka, C., Sorel, M., Stiegler, T., Toledo, J. F., Torrent, J., Uson, A., Veloso, J. F. C. A., Webb, R., Weiss-Babai, R., White, J. T., Woodruff, K., and Yahlali, N.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Physics - Atomic Physics
Abstract

We present evidence of non-excimer-based secondary scintillation in gaseous xenon, obtained using both the NEXT-White TPC and a dedicated setup. Detailed comparison with first-principle calculations allows us to assign this scintillation mechanism to neutral bremsstrahlung (NBrS), a process that has been postulated to exist in xenon that has been largely overlooked. For photon emission below 1000 nm, the NBrS yield increases from about 10$^{-2}$ photon/e$^{-}$ cm$^{-1}$ bar$^{-1}$ at pressure-reduced electric field values of 50 V cm$^{-1}$ bar$^{-1}$ to above 3$\times$10$^{-1}$ photon/e$^{-}$ cm$^{-1}$ bar$^{-1}$ at 500 V cm$^{-1}$ bar$^{-1}$. Above 1.5 kV cm$^{-1}$ bar$^{-1}$, values that are typically employed for electroluminescence, it is estimated that NBrS is present with an intensity around 1 photon/e$^{-}$ cm$^{-1}$ bar$^{-1}$, which is about two orders of magnitude lower than conventional, excimer-based electroluminescence. Despite being fainter than its excimeric counterpart, our calculations reveal that NBrS causes luminous backgrounds that can interfere, in either gas or liquid phase, with the ability to distinguish and/or to precisely measure low primary-scintillation signals (S1). In particular, we show this to be the case in the "buffer" and "veto" regions, where keeping the electric field below the electroluminescence (EL) threshold will not suffice to extinguish secondary scintillation. The electric field in these regions should be chosen carefully to avoid intolerable levels of NBrS emission. Furthermore, we show that this new source of light emission opens up a viable path towards obtaining S2 signals for discrimination purposes in future single-phase liquid TPCs for neutrino and dark matter physics, with estimated yields up to 20-50 photons/e$^{-}$ cm$^{-1}$., Comment: Published in Physical Review X

Published
2022
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40. Search for Spontaneous Radiation from Wavefunction Collapse in the Majorana Demonstrator

Author

Arnquist, I. J., Avignone III, F. T., Barabash, A. S., Barton, C. J., Blalock, E., Bos, B., Busch, M., Buuck, M., Caldwell, T. S., Chan, Y-D., Christofferson, C. D., Chu, P. -H., Clark, M. L., Cuesta, C., Detwiler, J. A., Efremenko, Yu., Ejiri, H., Elliott, S. R., Giovanetti, G. K., Green, M. P., Gruszko, J., Guinn, I. S., Guiseppe, V. E., Haufe, C. R., Henning, R., Aguilar, D. Hervas, Hoppe, E. W., Hostiuc, A., Kim, I., Kouzes, R. T., Lannen V, T. E., Lopez, A. M., López-Castaño, J. M., Martin, E. L., Martin, R. D., Massarczyk, R., Meijer, S. J., Oli, T. K., Othman, G., Paudel, L. S., Pettus, W., Poon, A. W. P., Radford, D. C., Reine, A. L., Rielage, K., Ruof, N. W., Tedeschi, D., Varner, R. L., Vasilyev, S., Wilkerson, J. F., Wiseman, C., Xu, W., Yu, C. -H., and Zhu, B. X.

Subjects
Nuclear Experiment, High Energy Physics - Experiment
Abstract

The Majorana Demonstrator neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment comprises a 44 kg (30 kg enriched in $^{76}\mathrm{Ge}$) array of $p$-type, point-contact germanium detectors. With its unprecedented energy resolution and ultralow backgrounds, Majorana also searches for rare event signatures from beyond standard model physics in the low energy region below 100 keV. In this Letter, we test the continuous spontaneous localization (CSL) model, one of the mathematically well-motivated wave function collapse models aimed at solving the long-standing unresolved quantum mechanical measurement problem. While the CSL predicts the existence of a detectable radiation signature in the x-ray domain, we find no evidence of such radiation in the 19--100 keV range in a 37.5 kg-y enriched germanium exposure collected between December 31, 2015, and November 27, 2019, with the Demonstrator. We explored both the non-mass-proportional (n-m-p) and the mass-proportional (m-p) versions of the CSL with two different assumptions: that only the quasifree electrons can emit the x-ray radiation and that the nucleus can coherently emit an amplified radiation. In all cases, we set the most stringent upper limit to date for the white CSL model on the collapse rate, $\lambda$, providing a factor of 40--100 improvement in sensitivity over comparable searches. Our limit is the most stringent for large parts of the allowed parameter space. If the result is interpreted in terms of the Di\`osi-Penrose gravitational wave function collapse model, the lower bound with a 95% confidence level is almost an order of magnitude improvement over the previous best limit., Comment: This document was corrected in accordance with the erratum: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.239902. The number presented in the recent version of this article is correct

Published
2022
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41. Ba$^{2+}$ ion trapping by organic submonolayer: towards an ultra-low background neutrinoless double beta decay detector

Author

Herrero-Gómez, P., Calupitan, J. P., Ilyn, M., Berdonces-Layunta, A., Wang, T., de Oteyza, D. G., Corso, M., González-Moreno, R., Rivilla, I., Aparicio, B., Aranburu, A. I., Freixa, Z., Monrabal, F., Cossío, F. P., Gómez-Cadenas, J. J., Rogero, C., Adams, C., Almazán, H., Alvarez, V., Arazi, L., Arnquist, I. J., Ayet, S., Azevedo, C. D. R., Bailey, K., Ballester, F., Benlloch-Rodríguez, J. M., Borges, F. I. G. M., Bounasser, S., Byrnes, N., Cárcel, S., Carrión, J. V., Cebrián, S., Church, E., Conde, C. A. N., Contreras, T., Denisenko, A. A., Díaz, G., Díaz, J., Dickel, T., Escada, J., Esteve, R., Fahs, A., Felkai, R., Fernandes, L. M. P., Ferrario, P., Ferreira, A. L., Foss, F. W., Freitas, E. D. C., Generowicz, J., Goldschmidt, A., González-Díaz, D., Guenette, R., Gutiérrez, R. M., Haefner, J., Hafidi, K., Hauptman, J., Henriques, C. A. O., Morata, J. A. Hernando, Herrero, V., Ho, J., Ifergan, Y., Jones, B. J. P., Kekic, M., Labarga, L., Laing, A., Larizgoitia, L., Lebrun, P., Gutierrez, D. Lopez, López-March, N., Losada, M., Mano, R. D. P., Martín-Albo, J., Martínez, A., Martínez-Lema, G., Martínez-Vara, M., McDonald, A. D., Meziani, Z. E., Mistry, K., Monteiro, C. M. B., Mora, F. J., Vidal, J. Muñoz, Navarro, K., Novella, P., Nygren, D. R., Oblak, E., Odriozola-Gimeno, M., Palmeiro, B., Para, A., Pérez, J., Querol, M., Raymond, A., Redwine, A. B., Renner, J., Ripoll, L., García, Y. Rodríguez, Rodríguez, J., Rogers, L., Romeo, B., Romo-Luque, C., Santos, F. P., Santos, J. M. F. dos, Simón, A., Sorel, M., Stanford, C., Teixeira, J. M. R., Thapa, P., Toledo, J. F., Torrent, J., Usón, A., Veloso, J. F. C. A., Vuong, T. T., Webb, R., White, J. T., Woodruff, K., and Yahlali, N.

Subjects
High Energy Physics - Experiment, Condensed Matter - Materials Science, Physics - Chemical Physics
Abstract

If neutrinos are their own antiparticles, the otherwise-forbidden nuclear reaction known as neutrinoless double beta decay ($\beta\beta 0\nu$) can occur, with a characteristic lifetime which is expected to be very long, making the suppression of backgrounds a daunting task. It has been shown that detecting (``tagging'') the Ba$^{+2}$ dication produced in the double beta decay ${}^{136}\mathrm{Xe} \rightarrow {}^{136}$Ba$^{+2}+ 2 e + (2 \nu)$ in a high pressure gas experiment, could lead to a virtually background free experiment. To identify these \Bapp, chemical sensors are being explored as a key tool by the NEXT collaboration . Although used in many fields, the application of such chemosensors to the field of particle physics is totally novel and requires experimental demonstration of their suitability in the ultra-dry environment of a xenon gas chamber. Here we use a combination of complementary surface science techniques to unambiguously show that Ba$^{+2}$ ions can be trapped (chelated) in vacuum by an organic molecule, the so-called fluorescent bicolour indicator (FBI) (one of the chemosensors developed by NEXT), immobilized on a surface. We unravel the ion capture mechanism once the molecules are immobilised on Au(111) surface and explain the origin of the emission fluorescence shift associated to the trapping of different ions. Moreover, we prove that chelation also takes place on a technologically relevant substrate, as such, demonstrating the feasibility of using FBI indicators as building blocks of a Ba$^{+2}$ detector.

Published
2022
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42. Development of a $^{127}$Xe calibration source for nEXO

Author

Lenardo, B. G., Hardy, C. A., Tsang, R. H. M., Ondze, J. C. Nzobadila, Piepke, A., Triambak, S., Jamil, A., Adhikari, G., Kharusi, S. Al, Angelico, E., Arnquist, I. J., Belov, V., Bernard, E. P., Bhat, A., Bhatta, T., Bolotnikov, A., Breur, P. A., Brodsky, J. P., Brown, E., Brunner, T., Caden, E., Cao, G. F., Cao, L., Chana, B., Charlebois, S. A., Chernyak, D., Chiu, M., Cohen, J. R., Collister, R., Dalmasson, J., Daniels, T., Darroch, L., DeVoe, R., di Vacri, M. L., Ding, Y. Y., Dolinski, M. J., Echevers, J., Eckert, B., Elbeltagi, M., Fabris, L., Fairbank, D., Fairbank, W., Farine, J., Fu, Y. S., Gallina, G., Gautam, P., Giacomini, G., Gillis, W., Gingras, C., Gornea, R., Gratta, G., Harouaka, K., Heffner, M., Hein, E., Hößl, J., House, A., Iverson, A., Jiang, X. S., Karelin, A., Kaufman, L. J., Krücken, R., Kuchenkov, A., Kumar, K. S., Larson, A., Leach, K. G., Leonard, D. S., Li, G., Li, S., Li, Z., Licciardi, C., Lindsay, R., MacLellan, R., Masbou, J., McMichael, K., Peregrina, M. Medina, Mong, B., Moore, D. C., Murray, K., Nattress, J., Natzke, C. R., Ngwadla, X. E., Ni, K., Ning, Z., Orrell, J. L., Ortega, G. S., Ostrovskiy, I., Overman, C. T., Perna, A., Franco, T. Pinto, Pocar, A., Pratte, J. F., Priel, N., Raguzin, E., Ramonnye, G. J., Rasiwala, H., Raymond, K., Richardson, G., Richman, M., Ringuette, J., Rowson, P. C., Saldanha, R., Sangiorgio, S., Shang, X., Soma, A. K., Spadoni, F., Stekhanov, V., Sun, X. L., Thibado, S., Tidball, A., Todd, J., Totev, T., Tyuka, O. A., Vachon, F., Veeraraghavan, V., Viel, S., Wamba, K., Wang, Y., Wang, Q., Wei, W., Wen, L. J., Wichoski, U., Wilde, S., Wu, W. H., Yan, W., Yang, L., Zeldovich, O., Zhao, J., and Ziegler, T.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, Nuclear Experiment
Abstract

We study a possible calibration technique for the nEXO experiment using a $^{127}$Xe electron capture source. nEXO is a next-generation search for neutrinoless double beta decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$) that will use a 5-tonne, monolithic liquid xenon time projection chamber (TPC). The xenon, used both as source and detection medium, will be enriched to 90% in $^{136}$Xe. To optimize the event reconstruction and energy resolution, calibrations are needed to map the position- and time-dependent detector response. The 36.3 day half-life of $^{127}$Xe and its small $Q$-value compared to that of $^{136}$Xe $0\nu\beta\beta$ would allow a small activity to be maintained continuously in the detector during normal operations without introducing additional backgrounds, thereby enabling in-situ calibration and monitoring of the detector response. In this work we describe a process for producing the source and preliminary experimental tests. We then use simulations to project the precision with which such a source could calibrate spatial corrections to the light and charge response of the nEXO TPC., Comment: 24 pages, 16 figures

Published
2022
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44. Measurement of the ${}^{136}$Xe two-neutrino double beta decay half-life via direct background subtraction in NEXT

Author

NEXT Collaboration, Novella, P., Sorel, M., Usón, A., Adams, C., Almazán, H., Álvarez, V., Aparicio, B., Aranburu, A. I., Arazi, L., Arnquist, I. J., Ayet, S., Azevedo, C. D. R., Bailey, K., Ballester, F., Benlloch-Rodríguez, J. M., Borges, F. I. G. M., Bounasser, S., Byrnes, N., Cárcel, S., Carrión, J. V., Cebrián, S., Church, E., Conde, C. A. N., Contreras, T., Cossío, F. P., Denisenko, A. A., Díaz, G., Díaz, J., Dickel, T., Escada, J., Esteve, R., Fahs, A., Felkai, R., Fernandes, L. M. P., Ferrario, P., Ferreira, A. L., Foss, F. W., Freitas, E. D. C., Freixa, Z., Generowicz, J., Goldschmidt, A., Gómez-Cadenas, J. J., González, R., González-Díaz, D., Guenette, R., Gutiérrez, R. M., Haefner, J., Hafidi, K., Hauptman, J., Henriques, C. A. O., Morata, J. A. Hernando, Herrero-Gómez, P., Herrero, V., Ho, J., Ifergan, Y., Jones, B. J. P., Kekic, M., Labarga, L., Laing, A., Larizgoitia, L., Lebrun, P., Gutierrez, D. Lopez, López-March, N., Losada, M., Mano, R. D. P., Martín-Albo, J., Martínez, A., Martínez-Lema, G., Martínez-Vara, M., McDonald, A. D., Meziani, Z. E., Mistry, K., Monrabal, F., Monteiro, C. M. B., Mora, F. J., Vidal, J. Muñoz, Navarro, K., Nygren, D. R., Oblak, E., Odriozola-Gimeno, M., Palmeiro, B., Para, A., Pérez, J., Querol, M., Raymond, A., Redwine, A. B., Renner, J., Ripoll, L., Rivilla, I., García, Y. Rodríguez, Rodríguez, J., Rogero, C., Rogers, L., Romeo, B., Romo-Luque, C., Santos, F. P., Santos, J. M. F. dos, Simón, A., Stanford, C., Teixeira, J. M. R., Thapa, P., Toledo, J. F., Torrent, J., Veloso, J. F. C. A., Vuong, T. T., Webb, R., White, J. T., Woodruff, K., and Yahlali, N.

Subjects
Nuclear Experiment, High Energy Physics - Experiment, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

We report a measurement of the half-life of the ${}^{136}$Xe two-neutrino double beta decay performed with a novel direct background subtraction technique. The analysis relies on the data collected with the NEXT-White detector operated with ${}^{136}$Xe-enriched and ${}^{136}$Xe-depleted xenon, as well as on the topology of double-electron tracks. With a fiducial mass of only 3.5 kg of Xe, a half-life of $2.34^{+0.80}_{-0.46}\textrm{(stat)}^{+0.30}_{-0.17}\textrm{(sys)}\times10^{21}~\textrm{yr}$ is derived from the background-subtracted energy spectrum. The presented technique demonstrates the feasibility of unique background-model-independent neutrinoless double beta decay searches., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, and 1 appendix

Published
2021
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45. The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR Readout Electronics System

Author

Abgrall, N., Amman, M., Arnquist, I. J., Avignone III, F. T., Barabash, A. S., Barton, C. J., Barton, P. J., Bertrand, F. E., Bhimani, K. H., Bos, B., Bradley, A. W., Burritt, T. H., Busch, M., Buuck, M., Caldwell, T. S., Chan, Y-D., Christofferson, C. D., Chu, P. -H., Clark, M. L., Cooper, R. J., Cuesta, C., Detwiler, J. A., Drobizhev, A., Edwins, D. W., Efremenko, Yu., Ejiri, H., Elliott, S. R., Gilliss, T., Giovanetti, G. K., Green, M. P., Gruszko, J., Guinn, I. S., Guiseppe, V. E., Haufe, C. R., Hegedus, R. J., Henning, R., Aguilar, D. Hervas, Hoppe, E. W., Hostiuc, A., Kidd, M. F., Kim, I., Kouzes, R. T., Li, A., Loach, J. C., Lopez, A. M., López-Castaño, J. M., Luke, P. N., Martin, E. L., Martin, R. D., Massarczyk, R., Meijer, S. J., Mertens, S., Myslik, J., Oli, T. K., Othman, G., Peterson, D., Pettus, W., Poon, A. W. P., Radford, D. C., Rager, J., Reine, A. L., Rielage, K., Robertson, R. G. H., Ruof, N. W., Sayki, B., Stortini, M. J., Tedeschi, D., Turqueti, M., Van Wechel, T. D., Varner, R. L., Vasilyev, S., Vetter, K., Wilkerson, J. F., Wiseman, C., Xu, W., Yaver, H., Yu, C. -H., Zhu, B. X., and Zimmermann, S.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, High Energy Physics - Experiment, Nuclear Experiment
Abstract

The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR comprises two arrays of high-purity germanium detectors constructed to search for neutrinoless double-beta decay in 76-Ge and other physics beyond the Standard Model. Its readout electronics were designed to have low electronic noise, and radioactive backgrounds were minimized by using low-mass components and low-radioactivity materials near the detectors. This paper provides a description of all components of the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR readout electronics, spanning the front-end electronics and internal cabling, back-end electronics, digitizer, and power supplies, along with the grounding scheme. The spectroscopic performance achieved with these readout electronics is also demonstrated., Comment: For submission to JINST, 17 figures. v2: revised version

Published
2021
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46. Signatures of muonic activation in the Majorana Demonstrator

Author

Arnquist, I. J., Avignone III, F. T., Barabash, A. S., Barton, C. J., Bertrand, F. E., Blalock, E., Bos, B., Busch, M., Buuck, M., Caldwell, T. S., Chan, Y-D., Christofferson, C. D., Chu, P. -H., Clark, M. L., Cuesta, C., Detwiler, J. A., Edwards, T. R., Efremenko, Yu., Ejiri, H., Elliott, S. R., Giovanetti, G. K., Green, M. P., Gruszko, J., Guinn, I. S., Guiseppe, V. E., Haufe, C. R., Henning, R., Aguilar, D. Hervas, Hoppe, E. W., Hostiuc, A., Kidd, M. F., Kim, I., Kouzes, R. T., Lannen V, T. E., Lopez, A. M., López-Castaño, J. M., Martin, E. L., Martin, R. D., Massarczyk, R., Meijer, S. J., Mertens, S., Oli, T. K., Othman, G., Paudel, L. S., Pettus, W., Poon, A. W. P., Radford, D. C., Reine, A. L., Rielage, K., Ruof, N. W., Tedeschi, D., Varner, R. L., Vasilyev, S., Wilkerson, J. F., Wiseman, C., Xu, W., Yu, C. -H., and Zhu, B. X.

Subjects
Nuclear Experiment, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

Experiments searching for very rare processes such as neutrinoless double-beta decay require a detailed understanding of all sources of background. Signals from radioactive impurities present in construction and detector materials can be suppressed using a number of well-understood techniques. Background from in-situ cosmogenic interactions can be reduced by siting an experiment deep underground. However, the next generation of such experiments have unprecedented sensitivity goals of 10$^{28}$ years half-life with background rates of 10$^{-5}$cts/(keV kg yr) in the region of interest. To achieve these goals, the remaining cosmogenic background must be well understood. In the work presented here, Majorana Demonstrator data is used to search for decay signatures of meta-stable germanium isotopes. Contributions to the region of interest in energy and time are estimated using simulations, and compared to Demonstrator data. Correlated time-delayed signals are used to identify decay signatures of isotopes produced in the germanium detectors. A good agreement between expected and measured rate is found and different simulation frameworks are used to estimate the uncertainties of the predictions. The simulation campaign is then extended to characterize the background for the LEGEND experiment, a proposed tonne-scale effort searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay in $^{76}$Ge., Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures

Published
2021
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47. The Dynamics of Ions on Phased Radio-frequency Carpets in High Pressure Gases and Application for Barium Tagging in Xenon Gas Time Projection Chambers

Author

NEXT Collaboration, Jones, B. J. P., Raymond, A., Woodruff, K., Byrnes, N., Denisenko, A. A., Foss, F. W., Navarro, K., Nygren, D. R., Vuong, T. T., Adams, C., Almazán, H., Álvarez, V., Aparicio, B., Aranburu, A. I., Arazi, L., Arnquist, I. J., Ayet, S., Azevedo, C. D. R., Bailey, K., Ballester, F., Benlloch-Rodríguez, J. M., Borges, F. I. G. M., Bounasser, S., Cárcel, S., Carrión, J. V., Cebrián, S., Church, E., Conde, C. A. N., Contreras, T., Cossío, F. P., Díaz, G., Díaz, J., Dickel, T., Escada, J., Esteve, R., Fahs, A., Felkai, R., Fernandes, L. M. P., Ferrario, P., Ferreira, A. L., Freitas, E. D. C., Freixa, Z, Generowicz, J., Goldschmidt, A., Gómez-Cadenas, J. J., González, R., González-Díaz, D., Guenette, R., Gutiérrez, R. M., Haefner, J., Hafidi, K., Hauptman, J., Henriques, C. A. O., Hernando~Morata, J. A., Herrero-Gómez, P., Herrero, V., Ho, J., Ifergan, Y., Kekic, M., Labarga, L., Laing, A., Lebrun, P., Gutierrez, D. Lopez, López-March, N., Losada, M., Mano, R. D. P., Martín-Albo, J., Martínez, A., Martínez-Lema, G., Martínez-Vara, M., McDonald, A. D., Meziani, Z. E., Mistry, K., Monrabal, F., Monteiro, C. M. B., Mora, F. J., Vidal, J. Muñoz, Novella, P., Oblak, E., Odriozola-Gimeno, M., Palmeiro, B., Para, A., Pérez, J., Querol, M., Redwine, A. B., Renner, J., Ripoll, L., Rivilla, I., García, Y. Rodríguez, Rodríguez, J., Rogero, C., Rogers, L., Romeo, B., Romo-Luque, C., Santos, F. P., Santos, J. M. F. dos, Simón, A., Sorel, M., Stanford, C., Teixeira, J. M. R., Thapa, P., Toledo, J. F., Torrent, J., Usón, A., Veloso, J. F. C. A., Webb, R., Weiss-Babai, R., White, J. T., and Yahlali, N.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, Nuclear Experiment
Abstract

Radio-frequency (RF) carpets with ultra-fine pitches are examined for ion transport in gases at atmospheric pressures and above. We develop new analytic and computational methods for modeling RF ion transport at densities where dynamics are strongly influenced by buffer gas collisions. An analytic description of levitating and sweeping forces from phased arrays is obtained, then thermodynamic and kinetic principles are used to calculate ion loss rates in the presence of collisions. This methodology is validated against detailed microscopic SIMION simulations. We then explore a parameter space of special interest for neutrinoless double beta decay experiments: transport of barium ions in xenon at pressures from 1 to 10 bar. Our computations account for molecular ion formation and pressure dependent mobility as well as finite temperature effects. We discuss the challenges associated with achieving suitable operating conditions, which lie beyond the capabilities of existing devices, using presently available or near-future manufacturing techniques., Comment: 26 pages, 16 figures v2: author list update and pre-journal submission adjustments

Published
2021

48. NEXO: Neutrinoless double beta decay search beyond $10^{28}$ year half-life sensitivity

Author

nEXO Collaboration, Adhikari, G., Kharusi, S. Al, Angelico, E., Anton, G., Arnquist, I. J., Badhrees, I., Bane, J., Belov, V., Bernard, E. P., Bhatta, T., Bolotnikov, A., Breur, P. A., Brodsky, J. P., Brown, E., Brunner, T., Caden, E., Cao, G. F., Cao, L., Chambers, C., Chana, B., Charlebois, S. A., Chernyak, D., Chiu, M., Cleveland, B., Collister, R., Czyz, S. A., Dalmasson, J., Daniels, T., Darroch, L., DeVoe, R., Di Vacri, M. L., Dilling, J., Ding, Y. Y., Dolgolenko, A., Dolinski, M. J., Dragone, A., Echevers, J., Elbeltagi, M., Fabris, L., Fairbank, D., Fairbank, W., Farine, J., Ferrara, S., Feyzbakhsh, S., Fu, Y. S., Gallina, G., Gautam, P., Giacomini, G., Gingras, W. Gillis C., Goeldi, D., Gornea, R., Gratta, G., Hardy, C. A., Harouaka, K., Heffner, M., Hoppe, E. W., House, A., Iverson, A., Jamil, A., Jewell, M., Jiang, X. S., Karelin, A., Kaufman, L. J., Kotov, I., Krücken, R., Kuchenkov, A., Kumar, K. S., Lan, Y., Larson, A., Leach, K. G., Lenardo, B. G., Leonard, D. S., Li, G., Li, S., Li, Z., Licciardi, C., Lindsay, R., MacLellan, R., Mahtab, M., Martel-Dion, P., Masbou, J., Massacret, N., McElroy, T., McMichael, K., Peregrina, M. Medina, Michel, T., Mong, B., Moore, D. C., Murray, K., Nattress, J., Natzke, C. R., Newby, R. J., Ni, K., Nolet, F., Nusair, O., Ondze, J. C. Nzobadila, Odgers, K., Odian, A., Orrell, J. L., Ortega, G. S., Overman, C. T., Parent, S., Perna, A., Piepke, A., Pocar, A., Pratte, J-F., Priel, N., Radeka, V., Raguzin, E., Ramonnye, G. J., Rao, T., Rasiwala, H., Rescia, S., Retière, F., Ringuette, J., Riot, V., Rossignol, T., Rowson, P. C., Roy, N., Saldanha, R., Sangiorgio, S., Shang, X., Soma, A. K., Spadoni, F., Stekhanov, V., Sun, X. L., Tarka, M., Thibado, S., Tidball, A., Todd, J., Totev, T., Triambak, S., Tsang, R. H. M., Tsang, T., Vachon, F., Veeraraghavan, V., Viel, S., Vivo-Vilches, C., Vogel, P., Vuilleumier, J-L., Wagenpfeil, M., Wager, T., Walent, M., Wamba, K., Wang, Q., Wei, W., Wen, L. J., Wichoski, U., Wilde, S., Worcester, M., Wu, S. X., Wu, W. H., Wu, X., Xia, Q., Yan, W., Yang, H., Yang, L., Zeldovich, O., Zhao, J., and Ziegler, T.

Subjects
Nuclear Experiment, Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

The nEXO neutrinoless double beta decay experiment is designed to use a time projection chamber and 5000 kg of isotopically enriched liquid xenon to search for the decay in $^{136}$Xe. Progress in the detector design, paired with higher fidelity in its simulation and an advanced data analysis, based on the one used for the final results of EXO-200, produce a sensitivity prediction that exceeds the half-life of $10^{28}$ years. Specifically, improvements have been made in the understanding of production of scintillation photons and charge as well as of their transport and reconstruction in the detector. The more detailed knowledge of the detector construction has been paired with more assays for trace radioactivity in different materials. In particular, the use of custom electroformed copper is now incorporated in the design, leading to a substantial reduction in backgrounds from the intrinsic radioactivity of detector materials. Furthermore, a number of assumptions from previous sensitivity projections have gained further support from interim work validating the nEXO experiment concept. Together these improvements and updates suggest that the nEXO experiment will reach a half-life sensitivity of $1.35\times 10^{28}$ yr at 90% confidence level in 10 years of data taking, covering the parameter space associated with the inverted neutrino mass ordering, along with a significant portion of the parameter space for the normal ordering scenario, for almost all nuclear matrix elements. The effects of backgrounds deviating from the nominal values used for the projections are also illustrated, concluding that the nEXO design is robust against a number of imperfections of the model., Comment: 26 pages, 19 figures, version accepted by Journal of Phys. G

Published
2021
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49. Reflectivity of VUV-sensitive Silicon Photomultipliers in Liquid Xenon

Author

Wagenpfeil, M., Ziegler, T., Schneider, J., Fieguth, A., Murra, M., Schulte, D., Althueser, L., Huhmann, C., Weinheimer, C., Michel, T., Anton, G., Adhikari, G., Kharusi, S. Al, Angelico, E., Arnquist, I. J., Badhrees, I., Bane, J., Beck, D., Belov, V., Bhatta, T., Bolotnikov, A., Breur, P. A., Brodsky, J. P., Brown, E., Brunner, T., Caden, E., Cao, G. F., Chambers, C., Chana, B., Charlebois, S. A., Chernyak, D., Chiu, M., Cleveland, B., Craycraft, A., Daniels, T., Darroch, L., Der Mesrobian-Kabakian, A., Croix, A. de St, Deslandes, K., DeVoe, R., Di Vacri, M. L., Dolinski, M. J., Echevers, J., Elbeltagi, M., Fabris, L., Fairbank, D., Fairbank, W., Farine, J., Ferrara, S., Feyzbakhsh, S., Gallina, G., Gautam, P., Giacomini, G., Gingras, C., Goeldi, D., Gorham, A., Gornea, R., Gratta, G., Hansen, E. V., Hardy, C. A., Harouaka, K., Heffner, M., Hoppe, E. W., House, A., Hughes, M., Iverson, A., Jamil, A., Jewell, M., Karelin, A., Kaufman, L. J., Krücken, R., Kuchenkov, A., Kumar, K. S., Lan, Y., Larson, A., Leach, K. G., Leonard, D. S., Li, G., Li, S., Li, Z., Licciardi, C., Lindsay, R., MacLellan, R., Martel-Dion, P., Massacret, N., McElroy, T., Peregrina, M. Medina, Mong, B., Moore, D. C., Murray, K., Nattress, J., Natzke, C. R., Newby, R. J., Nolet, F., Nusair, O., Ondze, J. C. Nzobadila, Odgers, K., Odian, A., Orrell, J. L., Ortega, G. S., Ostrovskiy, I., Overman, C. T., Parent, S., Piepke, A., Pocar, A., Pratte, J. -F., Raguzin, E., Ramonnye, G. J., Rasiwala, H., Rescia, S., Retière, F., Richard, C., Richman, M., Ringuette, J., Robinson, A., Rossignol, T., Rowson, P. C., Roy, N., Saldanha, R., Sangiorgio, S., Soma, A. K., Spadoni, F., Stekhanov, V., Stiegler, T., Tarka, M., Thibado, S., Tidball, A., Todd, J., Totev, T., Triambak, S., Tsang, R., Vachon, F., Veeraraghavan, V., Viel, S., Vivo-Vilches, C., Walent, M., Wichoski, U., Worcester, M., Wu, S. X., Xia, Q., Yan, W., Yang, L., and Zeldovich, O.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors
Abstract

Silicon photomultipliers are regarded as a very promising technology for next-generation, cutting-edge detectors for low-background experiments in particle physics. This work presents systematic reflectivity studies of Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM) and other samples in liquid xenon at vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) wavelengths. A dedicated setup at the University of M\"unster has been used that allows to acquire angle-resolved reflection measurements of various samples immersed in liquid xenon with 0.45{\deg} angular resolution. Four samples are investigated in this work: one Hamamatsu VUV4 SiPM, one FBK VUV-HD SiPM, one FBK wafer sample and one Large-Area Avalanche Photodiode (LA-APD) from EXO-200. The reflectivity is determined to be 25-36% at an angle of incidence of 20{\deg} for the four samples and increases to up to 65% at 70{\deg} for the LA-APD and the FBK samples. The Hamamatsu VUV4 SiPM shows a decline with increasing angle of incidence. The reflectivity results will be incorporated in upcoming light response simulations of the nEXO detector., Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures

Published
2021
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50. Boosting background suppression in the NEXT experiment through Richardson-Lucy deconvolution

Author

Simón, A., Ifergan, Y., Redwine, A. B., Weiss-Babai, R., Arazi, L., Adams, C., Almazán, H., Álvarez, V., Aparicio, B., Aranburu, A. I., Arnquist, I. J., Azevedo, C. D. R, Bailey, K., Ballester, F., Benlloch-Rodríguez, J. M., Borges, F. I. G. M., Byrnes, N., Cárcel, S., Carrión, J. V., Cebrián, S., Church, E., Conde, C. A. N., Contreras, T., Cossío, F. P., Denisenko, A. A., Díaz, G., Díaz, J., Escada, J., Esteve, R., Felkai, R., Fernandes, L. M. P., Ferrario, P., Ferreira, A. L., Foss, F., Freitas, E. D. C., Freixa, Z., Generowicz, J., Goldschmidt, A., Gómez-Cadenas, J. J., González, R., González-Díaz, D., Gosh, S., Guenette, R., Gutiérrez, R. M., Haefner, J., Hafidi, K., Hauptman, J., Henriques, C. A. O., Morata, J. A. Hernando, Herrero, P., Herrero, V., Ho, J., Jones, B. J. P., Kekic, M., Labarga, L., Laing, A., Lebrun, P., López-March, N., Losada, M., Mano, R. D. P., Martín-Albo, J., Martínez, A., Martínez-Vara, M., Martínez-Lema, G., McDonald, A. D., Meziani, Z. -E., Monrabal, F., Monteiro, C. M. B., Mora, F. J., Vidal, J. Muñoz, Newhouse, C., Novella, P., Nygren, D. R., Oblak, E., Odriozola-Gimeno, M., Palmeiro, B., Para, A., Pérez, J., Querol, M., Renner, J., Ripoll, L., Rivilla, I., García, Y. Rodríguez, Rodríguez, J., Rogero, C., Rogers, L., Romeo, B., Romo-Luque, C., Santos, F. P., Santos, J. M. F. dos, Sorel, M., Stanford, C., Teixeira, J. M. R., Thapa, P., Toledo, J. F., Torrent, J., Usón, A., Veloso, J. F. C. A., Vuong, T. T., Webb, R., White, J. T., Woodruff, K., and Yahlali, N.

Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, High Energy Physics - Experiment
Abstract

Next-generation neutrinoless double beta decay experiments aim for half-life sensitivities of ~$10^{27}$ yr, requiring suppressing backgrounds to <1 count/tonne/yr. For this, any extra background rejection handle, beyond excellent energy resolution and the use of extremely radiopure materials, is of utmost importance. The NEXT experiment exploits differences in the spatial ionization patterns of double beta decay and single-electron events to discriminate signal from background. While the former display two Bragg peak dense ionization regions at the opposite ends of the track, the latter typically have only one such feature. Thus, comparing the energies at the track extremes provides an additional rejection tool. The unique combination of the topology-based background discrimination and excellent energy resolution (1% FWHM at the Q-value of the decay) is the distinguishing feature of NEXT. Previous studies demonstrated a topological background rejection factor of ~5 when reconstructing electron-positron pairs in the $^{208}$Tl 1.6 MeV double escape peak (with Compton events as background), recorded in the NEXT-White demonstrator at the Laboratorio Subterr\'aneo de Canfranc, with 72% signal efficiency. This was recently improved through the use of a deep convolutional neural network to yield a background rejection factor of ~10 with 65% signal efficiency. Here, we present a new reconstruction method, based on the Richardson-Lucy deconvolution algorithm, which allows reversing the blurring induced by electron diffusion and electroluminescence light production in the NEXT TPC. The new method yields highly refined 3D images of reconstructed events, and, as a result, significantly improves the topological background discrimination. When applied to real-data 1.6 MeV $e^-e^+$ pairs, it leads to a background rejection factor of 27 at 57% signal efficiency., Comment: Submitted to JHEP

Published
2021
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