Amos Breskin
We present several novel ionization-electron and scintillation-photon recording concepts in noble-liquid detectors, for future applications in particle and astroparticle physics and in other fields. These involve both single- and dual-phase detector configurations with combined electroluminescence and small charge multiplication in gas and liquid media.
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Proportional electroluminescence (EL) is the physical effect used in two-phase dark matter detectors, to optically record in the gas phase the ionization signal produced by particle scattering in the liquid phase. In our previous works the presence of a new EL mechanism in noble gases, namely that of neutral bremsstrahlung (NBrS), was demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally, in addition to the ordinary EL mechanism due to excimer emission. In this work we show that the similar theoretical approach can apply to noble liquids, namely to liquid helium, neon, argon, krypton and xenon. I…
We review the current status of liquid noble gas radiation detectors with energy threshold in the keV range, wich are of interest for direct dark matter searches, measurement of coherent neutrino scattering and other low energy particle physics experiments. Emphasis is given to the operation principles and the most important instrumentation aspects of these detectors, principally of those operated in the double-phase mode. Recent technological advances and relevant developments in photon detection and charge readout are discussed in the context of their applicability to those experiments.
Dark matter detectors using the liquid noble gases xenon and argon as WIMP targets have evolved rapidly in the last decade and will continue to play a major role in the field. Due to the possibility to scale these detectors to larger masses relatively easily, noble liquids will likely be the first technology realizing a detector with a ton-scale target mass. In this article, we summarize the basic concepts of liquid noble gas dark matter detectors and review the current experimental status.
Neutral bremsstrahlung electroluminescence in noble liquids revisited
针对液态氩实验与既有NBrS电致发光理论不符的问题，本文改用电子动量转移截面修正稀有液体理论，重新计算氩、氪、氙并复核氦、氖的产额与光谱。
What surfaces in the operation of noble liquids dark matter detectors
本研究揭示惰性液体暗物质探测器运行中液体表面带电粒子积累引发的宏观效应及信号抑制问题，指出大型探测器需调整设计。
The field of dark matter direct detection has seen important contributions in recent years from experiments involving liquid noble gases, specifically liquid argon and liquid xenon. These detection media offer many properties deemed useful in this search, including fast scintillation response, charge readout, 3-D position reconstruction, and nuclear recoil discrimination. Part of the very rapid emergence and dominance of noble liquids is due to the fact that these technologies are easily scalable to nearly arbitrary size and mass. However, the physics impact of recent results has called into q…
In the last few years many advances have been made in the field of dark matter direct detection. In this article I will review the progress and status of experiments that employ detection techniques that do not use noble liquids. First, I will give an introduction to the field of dark matter and discuss the background challenges that confront all dark matter experiments. I will also discuss various detection techniques employed by the current generation and the next generation of dark matter experiments. Finally, I will discuss recent results and the status of current and future direct detecti…
A novel concept is proposed for large-volume single-phase noble-liquid TPC detectors for rare events. Both radiation-induced scintillation-light and ionization-charge are detected by Liquid Hole-Multipliers, LHM, immersed in the noble liquid. The latter may consist of cascaded Gas Electron Multipliers (GEM), Thick Gas Electron Multiplier (THGEM) electrodes or others, coated with CsI UV-photocathodes. Electrons, photo-induced on CsI by primary scintillation in the noble liquid, and event-correlated drifting ionization electrons are amplified in the cascaded elements primarily through electrolum…
Detection of the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) scintillation light produced by liquid noble elements is a central challenge in order to fully exploit the available timing, topological, and calorimetric information in detectors leveraging these media. In this paper, we characterize a novel, windowless amorphous selenium based photodetector with direct sensitivity to VUV light. We present here the manufacturing and experimental setup used to operate this detector at low transport electric fields (2.7-5.2 V/$μ$m) and across a wide range of temperatures (77K-290K). This work shows that the first proof-…
A workshop was held at Fermilab November 8-9, 2013 to discuss the challenges of using high voltage in noble liquids. The participants spanned the fields of neutrino, dark matter, and electric dipole moment physics. All presentations at the workshop were made in plenary sessions. This document summarizes the experiences and lessons learned from experiments in these fields at developing high voltage systems in noble liquids.
Cryogenic test facilities are critical infrastructure for physics experiments in a variety of fields, perhaps most notably for particle detection with noble liquid detectors, low-temperature device development, and quantum information research. However, considerable investment and technical knowledge are required to construct and operate such facilities. This white paper discusses proposals for user facilities aimed at broadening the availability of testing capabilities for the scientific community.
New candidate polymeric wavelength shifters for noble liquid detectors
本研究针对大型液氩探测器的波长移位器需求，探究新型聚合物PVN的低温波长移位性能，发现其虽脆性较高但移位效率和时间响应与PEN相当，为惰性液体探测器提供了新的候选材料。
The properties of UV-photon imaging detectors consisting of CsI-coated THGEM electron multipliers are summarized. New results related to detection of Cherenkov light (RICH) and scintillation photons in noble liquid are presented.
First observation of neutral bremsstrahlung electroluminescence in liquid argon
本研究利用GEM和THGEM结构，首次在90 kV/cm电场的液氩中观测到中性轫致辐射电致发光，测量的绝对光产额与采用动量转移截面计算的理论结果高度吻合，证实了稀有液体中存在该效应的预测。
We present a model of the ionization efficiency, or quenching factor, for low-energy nuclear recoils, based on a solution to Lindhard integral equation with binding energy and apply it to the calculation of the relative scintillation efficiency and charge yield for nuclear recoils in noble liquid detectors. The quenching model incorporates a constant average binding energy together with an electronic stopping power proportional to the ion velocity, and is an essential input in an analysis of charge recombination processes to predict the ionization and scintillation yields. Our results are comp…
In this paper, we describe 220Rn calibration source that was developed for liquid noble gas detectors. The key advantage of this source is that it can provide 212Bi-212Po consecutive events, which enables us to evaluate the vertex resolution of a detector at low energy by comparing low-energy events of 212Bi and corresponding higher-energy alpha-rays from 212Po. Since 220Rn is a noble gas, a hot metal getter can be used when introduced using xenon as the carrier gas. In addition, no long-life radioactive isotopes are left behind in the detector after the calibration is complete; this has clear…
Design and operation of a flash lamp for vacuum ultraviolet light production
本文介绍了一种用于测试真空紫外光敏传感器的闪光灯设计，并在室温下进行了原型运行，旨在为稀有液体探测器提供光源。
Design of a Large Area Digital SiPM with High Fill Factor and Fully Serial Digital Readout for Single Photon Detection in Liquid Noble Gas Detectors
本文设计了一种集成单光子雪崩二极管与CMOS读出的大面积数字SiPM芯片，具有高填充因子和全串行数字读出，可用于液态惰性气体暗物质探测中的单光子探测。
A Comprehensive Monte Carlo Simulation Tool on Electron Transport in Noble Gases and Liquids
本文开发了基于C++和MATLAB的蒙特卡罗模拟工具，用于惰性气体和液体中电子输运，通过群参数验证，支持探测器设计。
The Scintillating Bubble Chamber (SBC) Collaboration is developing liquid-noble bubble chambers for the quasi-background-free detection of low-mass (GeV-scale) dark matter and coherent scattering of low-energy (MeV-scale) neutrinos (CE$ν$NS). The first physics-scale demonstrator of this technique, a 10-kg liquid argon bubble chamber dubbed SBC-LAr10, is now being commissioned at Fermilab. This device will calibrate the background discrimination power and sensitivity of superheated argon to nuclear recoils at energies down to 100 eV. A second functionally-identical detector with a focus on radi…
There is growing interest in the use of noble liquid detectors to study particle properties and search for new phenomena. In particular, they are extremely suitable for performing direct searches for dark matter. In this kind of experiments, the light produced after an interaction within the sensitive volume is usually read-out by photomultipliers. The need to go to masses in the tonne scale to explore deeper regions of the parameter space, calls for the use of large area photomultipliers. In this paper we address the need to perform laboratory calibration measurements of these large photomult…
We report the preparation of a Kr-83m source and its subsequent use in calibrating a liquid xenon detector. Kr-83m atoms were produced through the decay of Rb-83 atoms trapped in zeolite molecular sieve and were then introduced into liquid xenon. Decaying Kr-83m nuclei were detected through liquid xenon scintillation. Conversion electrons with energies of 9.4 keV and 32.1 keV from the decay of Kr-83m were both observed. This calibration source will allow the characterization of the scintillation and ionization response of noble liquid detectors at low energies, highly valuable for the search f…
A radon emanation measurement system at the Carleton Noble Liquid Detector Laboratory
该研究开发了用于低背景实验的氡逸出测量系统，通过不锈钢逸出室、低背景ZnS(Ag)细胞和氡转移收集装置，研究材料在真空条件下的氡逸出，并用于减少未来稀有事件搜索实验的背景。
The subject of space charge in ionization detectors is reviewed, showing how the observations and the formalism used to describe the effects have evolved, starting with applications to calorimeters and reaching recent, large-size time projection chambers. General scaling laws, and different ways to present and model the effects are presented. The relation between space-charge effects and the boundary conditions imposed on the side faces of the detector are discussed, together with a design solution that mitigates part of the effects. The implications of the relative size of drift length and tr…
Dark Matter and Double Beta Decay experiments require extremely low radioactivity within the detector materials. For this purpose, the University of California, Los Angeles and Hamamatsu Photonics have developed the QUartz Photon Intensifying Detector (QUPID), an ultra-low background photodetector based on the Hybrid Avalanche Photo Diode (HAPD) and entirely made of ultraclean synthetic fused silica. In this work we present the basic concept of the QUPID and the testing measurements on QUPIDs from the first production line. Screening of radioactivity at the Gator facility in the Laboratori Naz…
Since the 1970s it has been known that noble gases scintillate in the near infrared (NIR) region of the spectrum (0.7 $μ$m < $λ$; < 1.5$μ$m). More controversial has been the question of the NIR light yield for condensed noble gases. We first present the motivation for using the NIR scintillation in liquid argon detectors, then briefly review early as well as more recent efforts and finally show encouraging preliminary results of a test performed at Fermilab.
Proportional electroluminescence (EL) is the physical effect used in two-phase detectors for dark matter searches, to optically record (in the gas phase) the ionization signal produced by particle scattering in the liquid phase. In our previous work the presence of a new EL mechanism, namely that of neutral bremsstrahlung (NBrS), was demonstrated in two-phase argon detectors both theoretically and experimentally, in addition to the ordinary EL mechanism due to excimer emission. In this work the similar theoretical approach is applied to all noble gases, i.e. overall to helium, neon, argon, kry…
Vertically stacked amorphous selenium based VUV photodetectors for use in liquid noble detectors
研究提出一种垂直堆叠非晶硒基VUV光电探测器，在低温下高效转换光为电荷，并通过石墨烯顶电极增强信号，为大型时间投影室集成传感器提供新方案。
GPU optical photon Monte Carlo for noble liquid detectors: validation against Geant4 in a large liquid argon TPC benchmark
提出基于GPU的光学模拟工具Simphony，通过CUDA和OptiX实现波长偏移模型，在14.7 kt液氩TPC基准测试中与Geant4验证，光学传输速度提升1053倍，端到端加速89倍。
Noble gases and liquids are excellent scintillators and this opens a unique opportunity to directly detect the primary scintillation light produced in these media by photons or particles. This signal can be used for several purposes, for example as a start signal for TPCs or for particles identification. Usually photomultipliers (PMs) are used for the detection of the scintillation light. In our previous work we have demonstrated that costly PMs could be replaced by gaseous detectors with CsI photocathodes . Such detectors have the same quantum efficiency as the best PMs but at the same time a…
Capacitive devices are customarily used as probes to measure the level of noble liquids in detectors operated for neutrino studies and dark matter searches. In this work we describe the use of a high-temperature superconducting material as an alternative to control the level of a cryogenic noble liquid. Lab measurements indicate that the superconductor shows a linear behaviour, a high degree of stability and offers a very accurate determination of the liquid volume. This device is therefore a competitive instrument and shows several advantages over conventional level meters.
Design of a high voltage delivery system for noble liquid time projection chambers
本文提出了一种专为nEXO实验设计的高电压输送系统，以提高惰性液体时间投影室的稳定性和辐射纯度。
A novel nuclear recoil calibration for liquid noble gas detectors
针对暗物质探测中核反冲校准的不足，本文提出利用氦束（α粒子）校准液氦探测器，实现低能、单能、可调通量，以精确匹配实验目标区域并减少事件堆积。
A liquid-phase loop-mode argon purification system
针对惰性流体探测器的高纯度需求，研发基于铜催化剂与4Å分子筛的中型液相循环液氩纯化系统，可实现商用液氩的高效纯化及受污染液氩的寿命恢复。
Detailed understanding of the ionization process in noble liquid detectors is important for their use in applications such as the search for dark matter and coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering. The response of noble liquid detectors to low-energy ionization events is poorly understood at this time. We describe a new simulation tool which predicts the ionization yield from electronic energy deposits (E < 10keV) in liquid Ar, including the dependence of the yield on the applied electric drift field. The ionization signal produced in a liquid argon detector from $^{37}$Ar beta decay and …
Noble liquid radiation detectors have long been afflicted by spurious electron emission from their cathodic electrodes. This phenomenon must be understood and mitigated in the next generation of liquid xenon (LXe) experiments searching for WIMP dark matter or neutrinoless double beta decay, and in the large liquid argon (LAr) detectors for the long-baseline neutrino programmes. We present a systematic study of this spurious emission involving a series of slow voltage-ramping tests on fine metal wires immersed in a two-phase xenon time projection chamber with single electron sensitivity. Emissi…
Liquid noble based particle detectors often use the organic wavelength shifter 1,1,4,4- tetraphenyl-1,3-butadiene (TPB) which shifts UV scintillation light to the visible regime, facilitating its detection, but which also can scintillate on its own. Dark matter searches based on this type of detector commonly rely on pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) for background mitigation. Alpha-induced scintillation therefore represents a possible background source in dark matter searches. The timing characteristics of this scintillation determine whether this background can be mitigated through PSD. We ha…
The bubble-assisted Liquid Hole Multiplier (LHM) is a recently-proposed concept for the combined detection of ionization electrons and primary scintillation photons in noble-liquid time projection chambers. The LHM comprises a perforated micro-pattern electrode (e.g. Thick Gas Electron Multiplier - THGEM, or Gas Electron Multiplier - GEM) immersed in the liquid, with a bubble of the noble gas supported underneath. Ionization electrons and scintillation-induced photoelectrons extracted from a cesium iodide photocathode drift through the electrode's holes and induce electroluminescence (EL) sign…
The study of primary and secondary scintillations in noble gases and liquids is of paramount importance to rare-event experiments using noble gas media. In the present work, the scintillation yield in gaseous and liquid Ar has for the first time been measured in the near infrared (NIR) and visible region, both for primary and secondary (proportional) scintillations, using Geiger-mode avalanche photodiodes (G-APDs) and pulsed X-ray irradiation. The primary scintillation yield of the fast component was measured to be 17000 photon/MeV in gaseous Ar in the NIR, in the range of 690-1000 nm, and 510…
The bubble-assisted Liquid Hole Multiplier (LHM) is a novel concept for the combined detection of ionization electrons and scintillation photons in noble-liquid time projection chambers. It consists of a perforated electrode immersed in the noble liquid, with heating wires generating a stable bubble underneath. Radiation-inducted ionization electrons in the liquid drift into the electrode's holes and cross the liquid-vapor interface into the bubble where they induce electroluminescence (EL). The top surface of the electrode is optionally coated with a CsI photocathode; radiation-induced UV-sci…
A new concept for the simultaneous detection of primary and secondary scintillation in time projection chambers is proposed. Its core element is a type of very-thick GEM structure supplied with transparent electrodes and machined from a polyethylene naphthalate plate, a natural wavelength-shifter. Such a device has good prospects for scalability and, by virtue of its genuine optical properties, it can improve on the light collection efficiency, energy threshold and resolution of conventional micropattern gas detectors. This, together with the intrinsic radiopurity of its constituting elements,…
The Noble Element Simulation Technique (NEST) is an exhaustive collection of models explaining both the scintillation light and ionization yields of noble elements as a function of particle type (nuclear recoil, electron recoil, alphas), electric field, and incident energy or energy loss dE/dx. It is packaged as C++ code for Geant4 that implements said models, overriding the default model which does not account for certain complexities, such as the reduction in yields for nuclear recoils (NR) compared to electron recoils (ER). We present here improvements to the existing NEST models and update…
In bubble-assisted Liquid HoleMultipliers(LHM), developed for noble-liquid radiation detectors, the stability of the bubble and the electro-mechanical properties of the liquid-to-gas interface play a dominant role in the detector performance. A model is proposed to evaluate the static equilibrium configurations of a bubble sustained underneath a perforated electrode immersed in a liquid. For the first time bubbles were optically observed in LAr; their properties were studied in contact with different material surfaces. This permitted investigating the bubble-electrodynamics via numerical simul…
Krypton-85 is an anthropogenic beta-decaying isotope which produces low energy backgrounds in dark matter and neutrino experiments, especially those based upon liquid xenon. Several technologies have been developed to reduce the Kr concentration in such experiments. We propose to augment those separation technologies by first adding to the xenon an 85Kr-free sample of krypton in an amount much larger than the natural krypton that is already present. After the purification system reduces the total Kr concentration to the same level, the final 85Kr concentration will have been reduced even furth…
The radioactive daughters isotope of 222Rn are one of the highest risk contaminants in liquid xenon detectors aiming for a small signal rate. The noble gas is permanently emanated from the detector surfaces and mixed with the xenon target. Because of its long half-life 222Rn is homogeneously distributed in the target and its subsequent decays can mimic signal events. Since no shielding is possible this background source can be the dominant one in future large scale experiments. This article provides an overview of strategies used to mitigate this source of background by means of material selec…
In some experiments and applications there is need for large-area photosensitive detectors to operate at cryogenic temperatures. Nowadays, vacuum PMs are usually used for this purpose. We have developed special designs of planar photosensitive gaseous detectors able to operate at cryogenic temperatures. Such detectors are much cheaper PMs and are almost insensitive to magnetic fields. Results of systematic measurements of their quantum efficiencies, the maximum achievable gains and long-term stabilities will be presented. The successful operation of these detectors open realistic possibilities…
The bubble-assisted Liquid Hole-Multiplier (LHM) is a recently-introduced detection concept for noble-liquid time projection chambers. In this "local dual-phase" detection element, a gas bubble is supported underneath a perforated electrode (e.g., Thick Gas Electron Multiplier - THGEM, or Gas Electron Multiplier - GEM). Electrons drifting through the holes induce large electroluminescence signals as they pass into the bubble. In this work we report on recent results of THGEM and GEM electrodes coated with cesium iodide and immersed in liquid xenon, allowing - for the first time - the detection…
Two-phase noble liquid detectors, with large target masses and effective background reduction, are currently leading the dark matter direct detection for WIMP masses above a few GeV. Due to their sensitivity to single ionized electron signals, these detectors were shown to also have strong constraints for sub-GeV dark matter via their scattering on electrons. In fact, the most stringent direct detection constraints for sub-GeV dark matter down to as low as ~5 MeV come from noble liquid detectors, namely XENON10, DarkSide-50, XENON100 and XENON1T, although these experiments still suffer from hi…
First studies on cascaded dual-phase liquid hole-multipliers in xenon
针对液态时间投影室放大挑战，提出无气泡级联双相液态孔倍增器结构，将涂CsI电极置于液-气界面下方，使光子探测效率代理指标提升超5倍，为探测器性能改进提供新方向。
We discuss recent advances in the development of cryogenic gaseous photomultipliers (GPM), for possible use in dark matter and other rare-event searches using noble-liquid targets. We present results from a 10 cm diameter GPM coupled to a dual-phase liquid xenon (LXe) TPC, demonstrating - for the first time - the feasibility of recording both primary ("S1") and secondary ("S2") scintillation signals. The detector comprised a triple Thick Gas Electron Multiplier (THGEM) structure with cesium iodide photocathode on the first element; it was shown to operate stably at 180 K with gains above 10^5,…
A comprehensive model for explaining scintillation yield in liquid xenon is introduced. We unify various definitions of work function which abound in the literature and incorporate all available data on electron recoil scintillation yield. This results in a better understanding of electron recoil, and facilitates an improved description of nuclear recoil. An incident gamma energy range of O(1 keV) to O(1 MeV) and electric fields between 0 and O(10 kV/cm) are incorporated into this heuristic model. We show results from a Geant4 implementation, but because the model has a few free parameters, im…
A measurement of ionization yields in noble-gas liquids is relevant to the energy calibration of nuclear recoil detectors for dark matter search and coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering experiments. In this work we further study the ionization yield of nuclear recoils in liquid Ar, using a two-phase detector with an electroluminescence gap and DD neutron generator. The ionization yields of nuclear recoils in liquid Ar were measured at 233 keV and electric fields of 0.56 and 0.62 kV/cm; their values amounted to 5.9 $\pm$ 0.8 and 7.4 $\pm$ 1 e$^-$/keV, respectively. The characteristic dependence…
Experiments searching for weak interacting massive particles with noble gases such as liquid argon require very low detection thresholds for nuclear recoils. A determination of the scintillation efficiency is crucial to quantify the response of the detector at low energy. We report the results obtained with a small liquid argon cell using a monoenergetic neutron beam produced by a deuterium-deuterium fusion source. The light yield relative to electrons was measured for six argon recoil energies between 11 and 120 keV at zero electric drift field.
The nature of dark matter (DM) remains a mystery since it has so far eluded detection in the laboratory. To that end, the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment was built to directly observe the interaction of DM with xenon target nuclei. LUX acquired data from April 2013 to May 2016 at SURF in South Dakota, which led to publications of many world-leading exclusion limits that probe much of the unexplored DM parameter space. This manuscript describes two novel direct detection methods that used the first LUX dataset to place limits on sub-GeV DM. The Bremsstrahlung and Migdal effects conside…
Calibration Plan for the SBC 10-kg Liquid Argon Detector with 100 eV Target Threshold
SBC 10公斤液氩探测器通过核汤姆逊散射和热中子捕获技术实现100eV目标阈值的校准，用于暗物质和中微子实验。
Noble liquid detectors have become an attractive option for exploring physics beyond the standard model. Current experiments are using these detectors to search for dark matter interactions, neutrinoless double beta decay, and other phenomena. Improved energy resolution can be leveraged from an optimized combination of two detection channels: ionization and scintillation. Experimentally, a microscopic anti-correlation behavior between these signals has been observed, but it has not been described from first principles. Making measurements in a third channel would provide useful information abo…
Dual-phase time projection chambers (TPCs) filled with the liquid noble gas xenon (LXe) are currently the most sensitive detectors searching for interactions of WIMP dark matter in a laboratory-based experiment. This is achieved by combining a large, monolithic dark matter target of a very low background with the capability to localize the interaction vertex in three dimensions, allowing for target fiducialization and multiple-scatter rejection. The background in dual-phase LXe TPCs is further reduced by the simultaneous measurement of the scintillation and ionization signal from a particle in…
Proportional electroluminescence (EL) in noble gases has long been used in two-phase detectors for dark matter search, to record ionization signals induced by particle scattering in the noble-gas liquid (S2 signals). Until recently, it was believed that proportional electroluminescence was fully due to VUV emission of noble gas excimers produced in atomic collisions with excited atoms, the latter being in turn produced by drifting electrons. In this work we consider an additional mechanism of proportional electroluminescence, namely that of bremsstrahlung of drifting electrons scattered on neu…
Intense infrared (IR) light emission from liquid Ar-Xe mixtures has been observed using 12 keV electron-beam excitation. The emission peaks at a wavelength of 1.18 $μ$m and the half-width of the emission band is 0.1 $μ$m. Maximum intensity has been found for a 10 ppm xenon admixture in liquid argon. The conversion efficiency of electron beam-power to IR-light is about 1% (10000 photons per MeV electron energy deposited). A possible application of this intense IR emission for a new particle discrimination concept in liquid noble gas detectors is discussed. No light emission was found for perfec…
Impact of extreme ultraviolet radiation on the scintillation of pure and xenon-doped liquid argon
X-ArT合作组利用硅光电倍增管发现氩原子态发射的长寿命极紫外谱线可增强纯及氙掺杂液氩闪烁光产额，建立综合模型并探讨其与杂散电子关联，为优化惰性液体探测器性能奠定基础。
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