Abstract
SuperCDMS is currently operating a 10-kg array of cryogenic germanium detectors in the Soudan Underground Laboratory to search for weakly interacting massive particles, a leading dark matter candidate. These detectors, known as iZIPs, measure ionization and athermal phonons from particle interactions with sensors on both sides of a Ge crystal. The ionization signal can be used to efficiently tag events at high radius and near the top and bottoms surfaces, where diminished charge collection can cause events to mimic WIMP-induced nuclear recoils. Using calibration data taken with a \(^{206}\)Pb source underground at Soudan, we demonstrate rejection of surface events of \((4.5 \pm 0.9) \times 10^{-4}\) with 46 % acceptance of nuclear recoils using the phonon signal only. We also show with \(^{133}\)Ba calibration data underground that the phonon channels can efficiently identify events near the sidewall. This phonon-based approach can also be extended to lower energies than the ionization-based position reconstruction.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Julien Billard, Blas Cabrera, Enectalí Figueroa-Feliciano, Lauren Hsu, Matt Pyle, and Richard Schnee for valuable discussions. A.A. is supported in part by the Department of Energy Office of Science Graduate Fellowship Program (DOE SCGF), made possible in part by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, administered by ORISE-ORAU under Contract No. DEAC05-06OR23100. The SuperCDMS collaboration acknowledges technical assistance from the Soudan Underground Laboratory and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The iZIP detectors were fabricated in the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility which is a member of the National Nanofabrication Infrastructure Network sponsored by NSF under Grant ECS-0335765. SuperCDMS is supported by the US DOE, NSF, NSERC Canada, and MULTIDARK.
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This study was conducted on behalf of the SuperCDMS Collaboration.
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Anderson, A. Phonon-Based Position Determination in SuperCDMS iZIP Detectors. J Low Temp Phys 176, 959–965 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10909-013-1015-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10909-013-1015-2