SuperCDMS is a direct detection search for WIMPs, currently operating a 9 kg array of germanium detectors in the Soudan Underground Laboratory. The detectors, known as iZIPs, are cylindrical in shape ...and each flat surface is instrumented with both ionization and phonon sensors. Charge and phonon information is collected for each event, and comparing the energy collected in the phonon sensors to the charge sensors gives excellent discrimination power between nuclear recoil and electron recoil events. Furthermore, this technology provides excellent discrimination between surface and bulk events. In order to show the surface event rejection capability of these detectors, two \(210}\) Pb sources were installed facing two of the detectors currently operating in the Soudan experimental run. The \(210}\) Pb decays to \(210}\) Bi, which in turn decays to \(210}\) Po. The \(210}\) Po decays by alpha emission, yielding a recoiling \(206}\) Pb ion with 103 keV kinetic energy and an alpha particle with 5.4 MeV kinetic energy. We used the non-standard Screened Nuclear Recoil Physics List (Mendenhall and Weller, Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. B 227:420-430, 2005) in Geant4 (Agostinelli et al., Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. Sect. A 506:250-303, 2003) to simulate all of the above decays and achieve excellent agreement with experiment. The focus of this paper is the simulation of the \(210}\) Po decay.
We present a detailed thermal and electrical model of superconducting transition edge sensors (TESs) connected to quasiparticle (qp) traps, such as the W TESs connected to Al qp traps used for CDMS ...(Cryogenic Dark Matter Search) Ge and Si detectors. We show that this improved model, together with a straightforward time-domain optimal filter, can be used to analyze pulses well into the nonlinear saturation region and reconstruct absorbed energies with optimal energy resolution.
The SuperCDMS experiment aims to directly detect dark matter particles called WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles). The detectors measure phonon and ionization energy due to nuclear and ...electron recoils from incident particles. The SuperCDMS Detector Monte Carlo group uses Geant4 to simulate electron-hole pairs (
e
-
/
h
+
) and low temperature phonons. We use these simulations in order to study energy deposition in the detectors. Phonons and electron-hole pairs are tracked in a crystal detector. Because of the band structure of the crystals, the electrons undergo oblique propagation. The charge electrodes on each side of the detector are biased at different voltages while the phonon sensors are grounded. This creates a nearly uniform electric field through the bulk of the detector, with a complex shape near the surfaces. The electric field is calculated from interpolating on a tetrahedral mesh. The resulting TES phonon readout, as well as the FET charge readout are simulated. To calculate the FET readout, the Shockley-Ramo theorem is applied to simulate the current in the FET. The goal of this paper is to describe the theory and implementation of calculating the electric field, performing the charge carrier propagation, and simulating the FET readout of the SuperCDMS detectors.
SuperCDMS is a direct detection search for WIMPs, currently operating a 9 kg array of germanium detectors in the Soudan Underground Laboratory. The detectors, known as iZIPs, are cylindrical in shape ...and each flat surface is instrumented with both ionization and phonon sensors. Charge and phonon information is collected for each event, and comparing the energy collected in the phonon sensors to the charge sensors gives excellent discrimination power between nuclear recoil and electron recoil events. Furthermore, this technology provides excellent discrimination between surface and bulk events. In order to show the surface event rejection capability of these detectors, two
210
Pb sources were installed facing two of the detectors currently operating in the Soudan experimental run. The
210
Pb decays to
210
Bi, which in turn decays to
210
Po. The
210
Po decays by alpha emission, yielding a recoiling
206
Pb ion with 103 keV kinetic energy and an alpha particle with 5.4 MeV kinetic energy. We used the non-standard Screened Nuclear Recoil Physics List (Mendenhall and Weller, Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. B 227:420–430,
2005
) in Geant4 (Agostinelli et al., Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. Sect. A 506:250–303,
2003
) to simulate all of the above decays and achieve excellent agreement with experiment. The focus of this paper is the simulation of the
210
Po decay.
The purpose of this experiment is to observe the oblique propagation of electrons through germanium by exciting a point source of charge carriers with a focused laser pulse on one face of a germanium ...crystal. After the electrons are drifted through the crystal by a uniform electric field, the pattern of charge density arriving on the opposite face is mapped and used to reconstruct the trajectories of the electrons. These measurements will verify in detail the Monte Carlo analysis utilized in the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search to model the transport of charge carriers in high-purity germanium detectors, including both oblique electron propagation and inter-valley scattering.
We report recent results obtained from several W/Al test devices on Si wafers fabricated specifically to better understand energy collection in phonon sensors used for the Cryogenic Dark Matter ...Search (CDMS) experiment. The devices under study consist of three different lengths of 250
μ
m-wide by 300 nm-thick Al absorber films, coupled to 250
μ
m x 250
μ
m (40 nm thick) W-TESs at each end of the Al film. An
55
Fe source was used to excite a NaCl reflector producing 2.6 keV Cl X-rays that were absorbed in our test device after passing through a collimator. The impinging X-rays broke Cooper pairs in the Al film, producing quasiparticles that we detected after they propagated into the W-TESs. We studied the diffusion of these quasiparticles in the Al, trapping effects in the Al film, and energy transmission at the Al/W interfaces.
SuperCDMS SNOLAB will be a next-generation experiment aimed at directly detecting low-mass particles (with masses ≤10 GeV/c2) that may constitute dark matter by using cryogenic detectors of two types ...(HV and iZIP) and two target materials (germanium and silicon). The experiment is being designed with an initial sensitivity to nuclear recoil cross sections ∼1×10−43 cm2 for a dark matter particle mass of 1 GeV/c2, and with capacity to continue exploration to both smaller masses and better sensitivities. The phonon sensitivity of the HV detectors will be sufficient to detect nuclear recoils from sub-GeV dark matter. A detailed calibration of the detector response to low-energy recoils will be needed to optimize running conditions of the HV detectors and to interpret their data for dark matter searches. Low-activity shielding, and the depth of SNOLAB, will reduce most backgrounds, but cosmogenically produced H3 and naturally occurring Si32 will be present in the detectors at some level. Even if these backgrounds are 10 times higher than expected, the science reach of the HV detectors would be over 3 orders of magnitude beyond current results for a dark matter mass of 1 GeV/c2. The iZIP detectors are relatively insensitive to variations in detector response and backgrounds, and will provide better sensitivity for dark matter particles with masses ≳5 GeV/c2. The mix of detector types (HV and iZIP), and targets (germanium and silicon), planned for the experiment, as well as flexibility in how the detectors are operated, will allow us to maximize the low-mass reach, and understand the backgrounds that the experiment will encounter. Upgrades to the experiment, perhaps with a variety of ultra-low-background cryogenic detectors, will extend dark matter sensitivity down to the “neutrino floor,” where coherent scatters of solar neutrinos become a limiting background.
The SuperCDMS experiment is designed to directly detect weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) that may constitute the dark matter in our Galaxy. During its operation at the Soudan Underground ...Laboratory, germanium detectors were run in the CDMSlite mode to gather data sets with sensitivity specifically for WIMPs with masses <10 GeV/c2. In this mode, a higher detector-bias voltage is applied to amplify the phonon signals produced by drifting charges. This paper presents studies of the experimental noise and its effect on the achievable energy threshold, which is demonstrated to be as low as 56 eVee (electron equivalent energy). The detector-biasing configuration is described in detail, with analysis corrections for voltage variations to the level of a few percent. Detailed studies of the electric-field geometry, and the resulting successful development of a fiducial parameter, eliminate poorly measured events, yielding an energy resolution ranging from ∼9 eVee at 0 keV to 101 eVee at ∼10 keVee. New results are derived for astrophysical uncertainties relevant to the WIMP-search limits, specifically examining how they are affected by variations in the most probable WIMP velocity and the Galactic escape velocity. These variations become more important for WIMP masses below 10 GeV/c2. Finally, new limits on spin-dependent low-mass WIMP-nucleon interactions are derived, with new parameter space excluded for WIMP masses ≲3 GeV/c2.
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