Battat, J.B.R., Daw, E., Ezeribe, A.C. et al. (17 more authors) (2016) First measurement of nuclear recoil head-tail sense in a fiducialised WIMP dark matter detector. Journal of Instrumentation, 11. P10019.
Abstract
Recent computational results suggest that directional dark matter detectors have potential to probe for WIMP dark matter particles below the neutrino floor. The DRIFT-IId detector used in this work is a leading directional WIMP search time projection chamber detector. We report the first measurements of the detection of the directional nuclear recoils in a fully fiducialised low-pressure time projection chamber. In this new operational mode, the distance between each event vertex and the readout plane is determined by the measurement of minority carriers produced by adding a small amount of oxygen to the nominal CS$_{2}$ + CF$_{4}$ target gas mixture. The CS$_2$ + CF$_4$ + O$_2$ mixture has been shown to enable background-free operation at current sensitivities. Sulfur, fluorine, and carbon recoils were generated using neutrons emitted from a $^{252}$Cf source positioned at different locations around the detector. Measurement of the relative energy loss along the recoil tracks allowed the track vector sense, or the so-called head-tail asymmetry parameter, to be deduced. Results show that the previously reported observation of head-tail sensitivity in pure CS$_{2}$ is well retained after the addition of oxygen to the gas mixture.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | Published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) by IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa Medialab srl. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation and DOI. |
Keywords: | dark matter; negative ion gas; time projection chamber; TPC; WIMP; WIMP-wind; head-tail; directionality; fiducialisation; CS2; CF4; minority carrier; neutron detector |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FACILITIES COUNCIL ST/N000277/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 09 Nov 2016 14:11 |
Last Modified: | 09 Nov 2016 14:11 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/11/10/P10019 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | IOP Publishing |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1088/1748-0221/11/10/P10019 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:106510 |