학술논문

First Measurement of Discrimination between Helium and Electron Recoils in Liquid Xenon for Low-Mass Dark Matter Searches
Document Type
article
Source
Physical Review Letters. 132(11)
Subject
Nuclear and Plasma Physics
Particle and High Energy Physics
Synchrotrons and Accelerators
Physical Sciences
Mathematical Sciences
Engineering
General Physics
Mathematical sciences
Physical sciences
Language
Abstract
We report the first measurement of discrimination between low-energy helium recoils and electron recoils in liquid xenon. This result is relevant to proposed low-mass dark matter searches which seek to dissolve light target nuclei in the active volume of liquid-xenon time projection chambers. Low-energy helium recoils were produced by degrading α particles from ^{210}Po with a gold foil situated on the cathode of a liquid xenon time-projection chamber. The resulting population of helium recoil events is well separated from electron recoils and is also offset from the expected position of xenon nuclear recoil events.