학술논문
Simulation and background characterisation of the SABRE South experiment
Document Type
article
Author
E. Barberio; T. Baroncelli; L. J. Bignell; I. Bolognino; G. Brooks; F. Dastgiri; G. D’Imperio; A. Di Giacinto; A. R. Duffy; M. Froehlich; G. Fu; M. S. M. Gerathy; G. C. Hill; S. Krishnan; G. J. Lane; G. Lawrence; K. T. Leaver; I. Mahmood; A. Mariani; P. McGee; L. J. McKie; P. C. McNamara; M. Mews; W. J. D. Melbourne; G. Milana; L. J. Milligan; J. Mould; F. Nuti; V. Pettinacci; F. Scutti; Z. Slavkovská; N. J. Spinks; O. Stanley; A. E. Stuchbery; G. N. Taylor; C. Tomei; P. Urquijo; C. Vignoli; A. G. Williams; Y. Y. Zhong; M. J. Zurowski
Source
European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields, Vol 83, Iss 9, Pp 1-16 (2023)
Subject
Language
English
ISSN
1434-6052
Abstract
Abstract SABRE (Sodium iodide with Active Background REjection) is a direct detection dark matter experiment based on arrays of radio-pure NaI(Tl) crystals. The experiment aims at achieving an ultra-low background rate and its primary goal is to confirm or refute the results from the DAMA/LIBRA experiment. The SABRE Proof-of-Principle phase was carried out in 2020–2021 at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS), in Italy. The next phase consists of two full-scale experiments: SABRE South at the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory, in Australia, and SABRE North at LNGS. This paper focuses on SABRE South and presents a detailed simulation of the detector, which is used to characterise the background for dark matter searches including DAMA/LIBRA-like modulation. We estimate an overall background of 0.72 cpd/kg/ $$\hbox {keV}_{\hbox {{ee}}}$$ keV ee in the energy range 1–6 $$\hbox {keV}_{\hbox {{ee}}}$$ keV ee primarily due to radioactive contamination in the crystals. Given this level of background and considering that the SABRE South has a target mass of 50 kg, we expect to exclude (confirm) DAMA/LIBRA modulation at $$4~(5)\sigma $$ 4 ( 5 ) σ within 2.5 years of data taking.