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Data-Driven Modeling of Electron Recoil Nucleation in PICO C$$_3$$F$$_8$$ Bubble Chambers

Journal Article · · Phys.Rev.D
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  1. Queen's U., Kingston
  2. Valencia, Polytechnic U.
  3. PNL, Richland
  4. Chicago U., EFI; Chicago U., KICP; Northwestern U.
  5. Indiana U., South Bend
  6. Drexel U.
  7. Northwestern U.
  8. Montreal U.
  9. Chicago U., EFI; Chicago U., KICP
  10. Fermilab
  11. Alberta U.
  12. Fermilab; PNL, Richland
  13. Alberta U.; Mexico U.
  14. Fermilab; Northwestern U.
  15. Saha Inst.
  16. Laurentian U.
  17. IEAP CTU, Prague
  18. Laurentian U.; Montreal U.
  19. SNOLAB, Lively
  20. Northeastern Illinois U.
  21. Laurentian U.; SNOLAB, Lively
  22. Penn State U.
  23. Laurentian U.; Mexico U.
  24. Virginia Tech.
+ Show Author Affiliations
The primary advantage of moderately superheated bubble chamber detectors is their simultaneous sensitivity to nuclear recoils from weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter and insensitivity to electron recoil backgrounds. A comprehensive analysis of PICO gamma calibration data demonstrates for the first time that electron recoils in C3F8 scale in accordance with a new nucleation mechanism, rather than one driven by a hot spike as previously supposed. Using this semiempirical model, bubble chamber nucleation thresholds may be tuned to be sensitive to lower energy nuclear recoils while maintaining excellent electron recoil rejection. The PICO-40L detector will exploit this model to achieve thermodynamic thresholds as low as 2.8 keV while being dominated by single-scatter events from coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering of solar neutrinos. In one year of operation, PICO-40L can improve existing leading limits from PICO on spin-dependent WIMP-proton coupling by nearly an order of magnitude for WIMP masses greater than 3  GeV c-2 and will have the ability to surpass all existing non-xenon bounds on spin-independent WIMP-nucleon coupling for WIMP masses from 3 to 40  GeV c-2.
Research Organization:
Alberta U.; Chicago U., EFI; Chicago U., KICP; Drexel U.; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); IEAP CTU, Prague; Indiana U., South Bend; Laurentian U.; Mexico U.; Montreal U.; Northeastern Illinois U.; Northwestern U.; Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Penn State U.; Queen's U., Kingston; SNOLAB, Lively; Saha Inst.; Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States); Valencia, Polytechnic U.; Virginia Tech.
Sponsoring Organization:
US Department of Energy; USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Contributing Organization:
PICO Collaboration
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-07CH11359; SC0011702
OSTI ID:
1546026
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1600658
OSTI ID: 1777229
Report Number(s):
FERMILAB-PUB-19-254-AE; oai:inspirehep.net:1737408; arXiv:1905.12522
Journal Information:
Phys.Rev.D, Journal Name: Phys.Rev.D Journal Issue: 8 Vol. 100
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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