Speaker
Dr
Scott Kravitz
(Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)
Description
Radon and its daughter decays continue to limit the sensitivity of WIMP direct dark matter searches, despite extensive screening programs, careful material selection and specialized Rn-
reduction systems. While these techniques form a basis for rare-event search experiments, we seek an event-level tag of radon daughter backgrounds. For liquid xenon TPCs, a means to
obtaining this lofty goal may lie in crystallizing the xenon. Then, experiments would be able to
observe each of the decay steps surrounding the problematic radon daughter beta decay
isotopes, at a fixed (x,y,z) in the instrument. The constraint of time structure in the decay
sequence could allow veto efficiency to approach 100%, with minimal effect on acceptance.
In this case, the limiting background for WIMP searches would be neutrinos from the sun and from cosmic ray muons. In this talk, I will argue that an instrumental radon tag in a crystalline xenon TPC may be the quickest path to reaching the neutrino floor and present preliminary results from a solid xenon test stand.
Primary author
Dr
Scott Kravitz
(Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)
Co-author
Peter Sorensen
(Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)
