Energy loss due to defect formation from ²⁰⁶Pb recoils in SuperCDMS germanium detectors

Journal Article · 27 August 2018 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5041457 · OSTI ID:1475487

Agnese, R. ^[1]; Aralis, T. ^[2]; Aramaki, T. ^[3]; Arnquist, I. J. ^[4]; Azadbakht, E. ^[5]; Baker, W. ^[5]; Banik, S. ^[6]; Barker, D. ^[7]; Bauer, D. A. ^[8]; Binder, T. ^[9]; Bowles, M. A. ^[10]; Brink, P. L. ^[3]; Bunker, R.  ^[4]; Cabrera, B.  ^[11]; Calkins, R. ^[12]; Cartaro, C. ^[3]; Cerdenõ, D. G. ^[13]; Chang, Y. -Y. ^[2]; Cooley, J. ^[12]; Cornell, B. ^[2] ; Cushman, P. ^[7]; Di Stefano, P. C. F. ^[14]; Doughty, T. ^[15]; Fascione, E. ^[14]; Figueroa-Feliciano, E. ^[16]; Fink, C. W. ^[15]; Fritts, M. ^[7]; Gerbier, G. ^[14]; Germond, R. ^[14]; Ghaith, M. ^[14]; Golwala, S. R. ^[2]; Harris, H. R. ^[5]; Hong, Z. ^[16]; Hoppe, E. W. ^[4]; Hsu, L. ^[8]; Huber, M. E.  ^[17]; Iyer, V. ^[6]; Jardin, D. ^[12]; Jena, C. ^[6]; Kelsey, M. H. ^[3]; Kennedy, A. ^[7]; Kubik, A. ^[5]; Kurinsky, N. A.  ^[3]; Lawrence, R. E.  ^[5]; Loer, B.  ^[4]; Lopez Asamar, E. ^[18]; Lukens, P.  ^[8]; MacDonell, D. ^[19]; Mahapatra, R. ^[5]; Mandic, V. ^[7]; Mast, N. ^[7]; Miller, E. H. ^[10]; Mirabolfathi, N. ^[5]; Mohanty, B. ^[6]; Morales Mendoza, J. D. ^[5]; Nelson, J. ^[7]; Orrell, J. L.  ^[4]; Oser, S. M. ^[19]; Page, W. A. ^[19]; Partridge, R.  ^[3]; Pepin, M.  ^[7]; Ponce, F.  ^[11]; Poudel, S. ^[9]; Pyle, M. ^[15]; Qiu, H. ^[12]; Rau, W. ^[14]; Reisetter, A. ^[20]; Ren, T. ^[16]; Reynolds, T. ^[1]; Roberts, A. ^[21]; Robinson, A. E. ^[22]; Rogers, H. E. ^[7]; Saab, T. ^[1]; Sadoulet, B. ^[23]; Sander, J. ^[9]; Scarff, A.  ^[19]; Schnee, R. W. ^[10]; Scorza, S. ^[24]; Senapati, K.  ^[6]; Serfass, B. ^[15]; Speller, D. ^[15]; Stein, M.  ^[12]; Street, J. ^[10]; Tanaka, H. A. ^[25]; Toback, D. ^[5]; Underwood, R. ^[14]; Villano, A. N.  ^[7]; von Krosigk, B.  ^[19]; Watkins, S. L. ^[15]; Wilson, J. S. ^[5]; Wilson, M. J. ^[25]; Winchell, J.  ^[5]; Wright, D. H. ^[3]; Yellin, S. ^[11]; Young, B. A. ^[26]; Zhang, X. ^[14]; Zhao, X. ^[5]

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1. Department of Physics, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA
2. Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
3. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA
4. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington 99352, USA
5. Department of Physics and Astronomy, and the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&,M University, College Station, Texas 77843, USA
6. School of Physical Sciences, National Institute of Science Education and Research, HBNI, Jatni 752050, India
7. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
8. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, Illinois 60510, USA
9. Department of Physics, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota 57069, USA
10. Department of Physics, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, South Dakota 57701, USA
11. Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
12. Department of Physics, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 75275, USA
13. Department of Physics, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, United Kingdom; Instituto de Física Teórica UAM/CSIC, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain
14. Department of Physics, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada
15. Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
16. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208-3112, USA
17. Department of Physics, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, Colorado 80217, USA; Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, Colorado 80217, USA
18. Department of Physics, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, United Kingdom
19. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z1, Canada; TRIUMF, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 2A3, Canada
20. Department of Physics, University of Evansville, Evansville, Indiana 47722, USA
21. Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, Colorado 80217, USA
22. Département de Physique, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec H3C 3J7, Canada
23. Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
24. SNOLAB, Creighton Mine #9, 1039 Regional Road 24, Sudbury, Ontario P3Y 1N2, Canada
25. Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A7, Canada
26. Department of Physics, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California 95053, USA

The Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment (SuperCDMS) at the Soudan Underground Laboratory studied energy loss associated with Frenkel defect formation in germanium crystals at mK temperatures using in situ $$^{210}$$Pb sources. We examine the spectrum of $$^{206}$$Pb nuclear recoils near its expected 103 keV endpoint energy and determine an energy loss of $$\left(6.08\pm0.18\right)$$ %, which we attribute to defect formation. From this result and using TRIM simulations, we extract the first experimentally determined average displacement threshold energy of $$\left(19.7^{+0.6}_{-0.5}\right)$$ eV for germanium. This has implications for the analysis thresholds of future germanium-based dark matter searches.

• Research Organization: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Univ. of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
• Contributing Organization: SuperCDMS Collaboration; SuperCDMS
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-76SF00515; AC02-07CH11359; AC05-76RL01830; SC0015657
• OSTI ID: 1475487
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1462732; OSTI ID: 1466865; OSTI ID: 1545068; OSTI ID: 1598291
• Report Number(s): FERMILAB-PUB-18-291-AE; arXiv:1805.09942; PNNL-SA-135936
• Journal Information: Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 113, Issue 9; ISSN 0003-6951
• Publisher: American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English