A high efficiency veto to increase the sensitivity of ZEPLIN-III, a WIMP detector

Journal Article · Tue Sep 08 00:00:00 EDT 2009 · AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3232186· OSTI ID:21322896

Barnes, E J ^[1]

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1. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ (United Kingdom)

An active veto detector to complement the ZEPLIN-III two phase Xenon, direct dark matter device is described. The proposed design consists of 52 plastic scintillator segments, individually read out by high efficiency photomultipliers, coupled to a Gd loaded passive polypropylene shield. Experimental work was performed to determine the plastic scintillator characteristics which were used to inform a complete end-to-end Monte Carlo simulation of the expected performance of the new instrument, both operating alone and as an active veto detector for ZEPLIN-III. The veto device will be capable of tagging over 65% of coincident nuclear recoil events in the energy range of interest in ZEPLIN-III, and over 12% for gamma ray rejection, while contributing no significant additional background. In addition it will also provide valuable diagnostic capabilities. The inclusion of the veto to ZEPLIN-III will aid to significantly improve the sensitivity to spin independent WIMP-nucleon cross sections below 10{sup -8} pb.

• OSTI ID: 21322896
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1166, Issue 1; Conference: 8. UCLA symposium on sources and detection of dark matter and dark energy in the Universe, Marina del Rey, CA (United States), 20-22 Feb 2008; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3232186; (c) 2009 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
BACKGROUND RADIATION
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
CROSS SECTIONS
DESIGN
EFFICIENCY
MONTE CARLO METHOD
NONLUMINOUS MATTER
PARTICLE IDENTIFICATION
PERFORMANCE
PHOTOMULTIPLIERS
PLASTIC SCINTILLATION DETECTORS
PLASTIC SCINTILLATORS
POLYPROPYLENE
READOUT SYSTEMS
RECOILS
SENSITIVITY
SHIELDS
SPIN
XENON