Using a wavelength shifter to enhance the sensitivity of liquid xenon dark matter detectors

Alexander I. Bolozdynya; Adam W. Bradley; Pavel P. Brusov; C. Eric Dahl; John Kwong; Tom Shutt

doi:10.1109/TNS.2008.919258

Using a wavelength shifter to enhance the sensitivity of liquid xenon dark matter detectors

Alexander I. Bolozdynya, Adam W. Bradley, Pavel P. Brusov, C. Eric Dahl, John Kwong, Tom Shutt

Physics and Astronomy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Liquid xenon dark matter detectors have been successfully employed to search for WIMPs, a proposed dark matter candidate. Increasing the scintillation wavelength from 175 nm to 300-400 nm can increase light collection and consequently improve sensitivity to dark matter. Such a shift increases the reflectivity of common reflector materials, decreases the amount of Rayleigh scattering and boosts the quantum efficiency of photomultiplier tubes. In this paper, we show that depositing p-terphenyl (p-TP) solid wavelength shifter on PTFE reflectors and the entrance window of a photomultiplier tube enhanced light-collection efficiency by 21%. We also observed an anti-correlation between the liquid xenon temperature and electron drift length, indicating that the p-TP dissolves into liquid xenon with a temperature dependent solubility. Possible ways to solve the drift length problem are discussed in the paper.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	4545147
Pages (from-to)	1453-1457
Number of pages	5
Journal	IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science
Volume	55
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/TNS.2008.919258
State	Published - Jun 2008

Keywords

Dark matter
Liquid xenon
P-terphenyl
Scintillation
Time projection chamber
Wavelength shifting

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Nuclear Energy and Engineering
Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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Cite this

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abstract = "Liquid xenon dark matter detectors have been successfully employed to search for WIMPs, a proposed dark matter candidate. Increasing the scintillation wavelength from 175 nm to 300-400 nm can increase light collection and consequently improve sensitivity to dark matter. Such a shift increases the reflectivity of common reflector materials, decreases the amount of Rayleigh scattering and boosts the quantum efficiency of photomultiplier tubes. In this paper, we show that depositing p-terphenyl (p-TP) solid wavelength shifter on PTFE reflectors and the entrance window of a photomultiplier tube enhanced light-collection efficiency by 21%. We also observed an anti-correlation between the liquid xenon temperature and electron drift length, indicating that the p-TP dissolves into liquid xenon with a temperature dependent solubility. Possible ways to solve the drift length problem are discussed in the paper.",

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note = "Funding Information: Manuscript received June 29, 2007; revised December 20, 2007. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant RES109094. A. Bolozdynya, A. Bradley, P. Brusov, and T. Shutt are with the Department of Physics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106 USA (e-mail: aib3@cwru.edu). C. E. Dahl and J. Kwong are with the Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 USA (e-mail: jktwo@princeton.edu). Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TNS.2008.919258",

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AU - Shutt, Tom

N1 - Funding Information: Manuscript received June 29, 2007; revised December 20, 2007. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant RES109094. A. Bolozdynya, A. Bradley, P. Brusov, and T. Shutt are with the Department of Physics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106 USA (e-mail: aib3@cwru.edu). C. E. Dahl and J. Kwong are with the Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 USA (e-mail: jktwo@princeton.edu). Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TNS.2008.919258

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Using a wavelength shifter to enhance the sensitivity of liquid xenon dark matter detectors

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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