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Cryogenic scintillating crystals for NSIs and accelerator-based dark matter search

ORAL

Abstract

The feasibility of using an undoped cesium iodide (CsI) detector directly coupled to SiPM arrays in a cryogenic environment at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for the detection of low-mass dark matter (LDM) particles (~MeV) and non-standard neutrino interactions (NSIs), was studied as part of the detector R&D effort of the COHERENT experiment.



The COHERENT collaboration firstly measured Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering (CEvNS) in 2017. CEvNS is a neutral-current process where a neutrino scatters a nucleus via the exchange of a Z boson, and the nucleus recoils as a whole. CEvNS dominates for medium nuclei for neutrino energies less than about 50 MeV, the only experimental signature of that occurred is the tiny energy deposited by the nuclear recoil in the target material. Therefore, the energy threshold of the detector needs to be low enough to make the detection possible.



The key ingredients of the proposed technology compared to the previous CsI (Na) detectors will be the main discussion. The conservative estimated energy threshold of the prototype and the corresponding results will be shown.

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Publication: Light yield of an undoped CsI crystal coupled directly to a photomultiplier tube at 77 Kelvin. J. Liu, M. Yamashita, and A. K. Soma. J, Inst., 11(10):P10003, 2016.<br>Prospect of undoped inorganic crystals at 77 Kelvin for low-mass dark matter search at Spallation Neutron Source. Dmitry Chernyak, Daniel Pershey, Jing Liu, Keyu Ding, Nathan Saunders, and Tupendra Oli, Eur. Phys. J. C, 80(6):547 (2020).<br>Light yield of cold undoped CsI crystal down to 13 keV and the application of such crystals in neutrino detection. Keyu Ding, Dmitry Chernyak, and Jing Liu, Eur. Phys. J. C, 80(12):1146, 2020.<br>First operation of undoped CsI directly coupled with SiPMs at 77 Kelvin. Keyu Ding, Jing Liu, Yongjin Yang, and Dmitry Chernyak, Eur. Phys. J. C, 82(4):344, 2022.

Presenters

  • Keyu Ding

    University of South Dakota

Authors

  • Keyu Ding

    University of South Dakota