A G/NARRLI Effort. Measuring the Ionization Yield of Low-Energy Nuclear Recoils in Liquid Argon

Thesis/Dissertation · Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1132039· OSTI ID:1132039

Joshi, Tenzing Henry Yatish ^[1]

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1. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)

Liquid argon has long been used for particle detection due to its attractive drift properties, ample abundance, and reasonable density. The response of liquid argon to lowenergy O(10² -10⁴4 eV) interactions is, however, largely unexplored. Weakly interacting massive particles such as neutrinos and hypothetical dark-matter particles (WIMPs) are predicted to coherently scatter on atomic nuclei, leaving only an isolated low-energy nuclear recoil as evidence. The response of liquid argon to low-energy nuclear recoils must be studied to determine the sensitivity of liquid argon based detectors to these unobserved interactions. Detectors sensitive to coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering may be used to monitor nuclear reactors from a distance, to detect neutrinos from supernova, and to test the predicted behavior of neutrinos. Additionally, direct detection of hypothetical weakly interacting dark matter would be a large step toward understanding the substance that accounts for nearly 27% of the universe. In this dissertation I discuss a small dual-phase (liquid-gas) argon proportional scintillation counter built to study the low-energy regime and several novel calibration and characterization techniques developed to study the response of liquid argon to low-energy O(10² -10⁴ eV) interactions.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC52-07NA27344
• OSTI ID: 1132039
• Report Number(s): LLNL-TH-654146
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS