Development of New Cryogenic Low-threshold Detectors for the Search of Light Dark Matter and Low-energy Neutrino Physics
Development of New Cryogenic Low-threshold Detectors for the Search of Light Dark Matter and Low-energy Neutrino Physics

Author: Dimitri Misiak

Publisher:

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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The Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering (CENNS) is a process predicted nearly 40 years ago. In August 2017, the COHERENT experiment reported the first keV-scale detection at the 6.7 sigma level of this process, which is a probe for the new low energy physics, opening a window on a myriad of new physics opportunities. The RICOCHET experiment aims at measuring with high accuracy the CENNS process in order to probe various exotic physics scenarios in the electroweak sector. Using cryogenic bolometers operated in a cryostat 8 meters away from the core of the ILL research nuclear reactor, the experiment will benefit from an intense neutrino flux, allowing the results of COHERENT to be reproduced in a single week. The objective of an accurate measurement will be achieved after one year of data collection, by 2024. The CRYOCUBE is a compact cubic array of cryogenic detectors with the following specifications: a very low energy threshold of O(10) eV on the thermal signal, an electromagnetic background rejection of at least 10^3 and a total target mass of 1 kg distributed among 27 germanium crystals of about 30 g each. The objective of this thesis is to propose an optimized detector design for the CRYOCUBE, inspired by the cryogenic germanium detectors equipped with charge and temperature readings of the direct dark matter search experiment EDELWEISS. This joint R&D program is based on event discrimination realized in germanium semiconductor crystals. The recoil energy of an incident particle is derived either from the increase of the crystal temperature measured by a GeNTD thermistor (heat channel) or from the excited electric charges collected by electrodes on its surface (ionization channel). This double energy measurement makes it possible to distinguish the nuclear recoils produced by the CENNS or the dark matter from the electronic radioactive background. As these recoils are of the order of O(100) eV, this thesis work is focused on the development of a new generation of cryogenic low threshold germanium detectors with particle identification. It explores how to improve the resolution in heat and ionization energy up to O(10) eV while maintaining a good rejection of background events. This study is based on the testing of prototype detectors in the IP2I cryostat, which are compared to theoretical predictions from electro-thermal and electrostatic modeling of the detectors. This manuscript begins with the definition of the CENNS process, its scientific importance and the objectives of the RICOCHET experiment. It then presents the cryogenic installation allowing the surface operation of the detectors at 20 mK in optimal conditions. An electro-thermal model of the bolometers, compared with experimental data, is developed and applied to the simulation of the noise associated with the electronics of the heat signal. The thesis then formalizes the generation of the ionization signals arising from excited charge carriers drifting in the germanium crystal under the influence of the applied electric field. The expected resolution from a future low-noise electronics is modeled based on two detector designs. They are optimized by their electrostatic simulation in a finite element calculation software. A comparison of the theoretical and experimental performance of ionization is performed on the basis of the RED80 and REDN1 prototype detectors. This work ends with the characterization of the radioactive background in the cryogenic laboratory with the analysis of the data from RED80, and in particular its neutron component, used to estimate the expected background at the ILL site for RICOCHET.

Low Temperature Detectors for Neutrinos and Dark Matter
Low Temperature Detectors for Neutrinos and Dark Matter

Author: Klaus Pretzl

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 3642729592

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For the last few years astrophysicists and elementary particle physicists have been working jointly on the following fascinating phenomena: 1. The solar neutrino puzzle and the question: What happens to the neutrinos on their way from the sun to the earth? 2. The growing evidence that our universe is filled with about 10 times more matter than is visible and the question: What is dark matter made of? 3. The supernovae explosions and the question: What do neutrinos tell us about such explosions and vice versa? The experimental investigation of these phenomena is difficult and involves unconventional techniques. These are presently under development, and bring together such seemingly disparate disciplines as astrophysics and elementary particle physics on the one hand and superconductivity and solid-state physics on the other. This book contains the proceedings of a workshop held in March 1987 at which the above subjects and their experimental investigation were discussed. The proposed experimental methods are very new. They involve frontier developments in low temperature and solid-state physics. The book should be useful to researchers and students who actively work on these subjects or plan to enter the field. It also offers the non-expert reader with some physics background a good survey of the activities in this field.

Cryogenic Particle Detection
Cryogenic Particle Detection

Author: Hans-Christian Stahl

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2005-06-22

Total Pages: 538

ISBN-13: 9783540201137

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The development of cryogenic devices for particle detection has reached a stage at which many interesting applications are conceivable and already have been demonstrated. The book provides a comprehensive review of the field of cryogenic particle detection. It introduces the different detection techniques and gives an overview of the important areas in which these detectors are successfully applied.

Two-phase Emission Detectors
Two-phase Emission Detectors

Author: Dmitry Yu Akimov

Publisher: World Scientific

Published: 2021-07-15

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 9811231109

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One of the rapidly developing areas of modern experimental nuclear physics is non-accelerator experiments using low-background detectors. Such experiments, as a rule, are aimed at solving problems that are of fundamental importance for understanding the structure of the Universe, checking the Standard Model of elementary particles, and looking for new physics behind the observable world. The most interesting tasks include the search for dark matter in the form of new weakly interacting particles, the search for neutrinoless double beta decay, the determination of the magnetic moment of the neutrino, the study of neutrino oscillation and new types of interaction of elementary particles, such as coherent neutrino scattering off heavy nuclei.All these processes, occurring with extremely low cross sections, require the development of efficient large-mass detectors capable of detecting small energy releases down to individual ionization electrons. An effective method to do this is the emission method of detecting ionizing particles in two-phase media, which has been proposed at Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI) 50 years ago. The origin of this technique can be traced to the research headed by Prof. Boris A Dolgoshein, whose study focus on the properties of condensed noble gases as a means to develop a tracking streamer chamber with a high-density working medium.This monograph, devoted exclusively to two-phase emission detectors, considers the technology's basic features while taking into account new developments introduced into experimental practice in the last ten years since the publication of its predecessor, Emission Detectors (Bolozdynya, 2010).

Task I
Task I

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Dark Matter Search - During the period of performance, our group continued the search for dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles or WIMPs. As a key member of the CDMS (Cryogenic Dark Matter Search) collaboration, we completed the CDMS II experiment which led the field in sensitivity for more than five years. We fabricated all detectors, and participated in detector testing and verification. In addition, we participated in the construction and operation of the facility at the Soudan Underground Laboratory and played key roles in the data acquisition and analysis. Towards the end of the performance period, we began operating the SuperCDMS Soudan experiment, which consists of 15 advanced Ge (9 kg) detectors. The advanced detector design called iZIP grew out of our earlier DOE Particle Detector R & D program which demonstrated the rejection of surface electrons to levels where they are no longer the dominant source of background. Our group invented this advanced design and these larger detectors were fabricated on the Stanford campus in collaboration with the SLAC CDMS group and the Santa Clara University group. The sensitivity reach is expected to be up to 5 times better than CDMS II after two years of operation. We will check the new limits on WIMPs set by XENON100, and we expect improved sensitivity for light mass WIMPs beyond that of any other existing experiment. Our group includes the Spokesperson for SuperCDMS and continues to make important contributions to improvements in the detector technology which are enabling the very low trigger thresholds used to explore the low mass WIMP region. We are making detailed measurements of the charge transport and trapping within Ge crystals, measuring the diffusive trapping distance of the quasiparticle excitations within the Al phonon collector fins on the detector surface, and we are contributing to the development of much improved detector Monte Carlos which are essential to guide the detector design and optimize the analysis. Neutrino Physics - In the period of performance the neutrino group successfully completed the construction of EXO-200 and commissioned the detector. Science data taking started on Jun 1, 2011. With the discovery of the 2-neutrino double-beta decay in 136-Xe and the first measurement of the 0-neutrino mode resulting in the most stringent limit of Majorana masses, our group continues to be a leading innovator in the field of neutrino physics which is central to DOE-HEP Intensity Frontier program. The phenomenon of neutrino oscillations, in part elucidated by our earlier efforts with the Palo Verde and KamLAND experiments, provides the crucial information that neutrino masses are non-zero and, yet, it contains no information on the value of the neutrino mass scale. In recent times our group has therefore shifted its focus to a high sensitivity 0-neutrino double beta decay program, EXO. The 0-neutrino double beta decay provides the best chance of extending the sensitivity to the neutrino mass scale below 10 meV but, maybe more importantly, it tests the nature of the neutrino wave function, providing the most sensitive probe for Majorana particles and lepton number violation. The EXO program, formulated by our group several years ago, plans to use up to tonnes of the isotope 136-Xe to study the 0-neutrino double beta decay mode. The EXO-200 detector is the first step in this program and it represents the only large US-led and based experiment taking data. The EXO-200 isotope enrichment program broke new grounds for the enterprise of double beta decay. The detector design and material selection program paid off, resulting in a background that is among the very best in the field. The "first light" of EXO-200 was very exciting with the discovery -in the first month of data- of the rarest 2-neutrino double beta decay mode ever observed. The lower limit on the 0-neutrino double beta decay half-life, published in Phys. Rev. Lett. and based on th ...

The Thirteenth International Workshop on Low Temperature Detectors - LTD 13
The Thirteenth International Workshop on Low Temperature Detectors - LTD 13

Author: Betty Young

Publisher: American Institute of Physics

Published: 2010-03-01

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780735407510

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These proceedings are broadly of interest to many research areas which utilize low temperature detectors for measurements. These include photon sciences at synchrotron radiation facilities, neutrino physics, nuclear physics, atomic physics, dark matter searches, sub-Kelvin cryogenic refrigeration systems, novel detectors or astrophysics from millimeter wave bolometers, to single photon energy and time resolving from near-infrared to ultraviolet optical detectors, through the highest spectral resolution x-ray and gamma ray detectors, to large mass detectors for dark matter searches. These applications include particle phyisics, astrophysics, materials physics, and security non-proliferation, and cryogenic engineering. This thoroughly peer-reviewed proceedings of the Thirteenth International Workshop on Low Temperature Detectors provides a snapshot of the state-of-the-art in low temperature particle and radiation detectors. In 173 original research papers from 233 distinct presentations, the physics and applications of this extremely high performance type of detectors is described in detail, including their application to such diverse fields as astrophysics at all wavelengths from the submillimeter to gamma-ray, dark matter searches, neutrino astrophysics, atomic physics, nuclear physics, biophysics, and materials science.