TY - JOUR
T1 - A highly efficient neutron veto for dark matter experiments
AU - Wright, Alex
AU - Mosteiro, Pablo
AU - Loer, Ben
AU - Calaprice, Frank
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank the other members of the DarkSide collaboration and the members of the CDMS group at FNAL for interesting and productive discussions about the practical aspects of the deployment of liquid scintillator neutron vetoes in dark matter experiments. This work was supported by NSF Grants 0802646 and 0704220 , DOE Grant DE-FG0291ER40671 , and the Princeton University PFEP program.
PY - 2011/7/11
Y1 - 2011/7/11
N2 - We present a conceptual design for an active neutron veto, based on boron-loaded liquid scintillator, for use in direct-detection dark matter experiments. The simulated efficiency of a 1 m thick veto is greater than 99.5% for background events produced by radiogenic neutrons, while the background due to externally produced cosmogenic neutrons is reduced by more than 95%. The ability of the veto to both significantly suppress, and provide in situ measurements of, these two dominant sources of background would make the next generation of dark matter experiments much more robust, and dramatically improve the credibility of a dark matter detection claim based on the observation of a few recoil events. The veto would also allow direct extrapolation between the background-free operation of a small detector and the physics reach of a larger detector of similar construction.
AB - We present a conceptual design for an active neutron veto, based on boron-loaded liquid scintillator, for use in direct-detection dark matter experiments. The simulated efficiency of a 1 m thick veto is greater than 99.5% for background events produced by radiogenic neutrons, while the background due to externally produced cosmogenic neutrons is reduced by more than 95%. The ability of the veto to both significantly suppress, and provide in situ measurements of, these two dominant sources of background would make the next generation of dark matter experiments much more robust, and dramatically improve the credibility of a dark matter detection claim based on the observation of a few recoil events. The veto would also allow direct extrapolation between the background-free operation of a small detector and the physics reach of a larger detector of similar construction.
KW - Boron-loaded liquid scintillator
KW - Direct-detection dark matter search
KW - Low-background techniques
KW - Neutron veto
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U2 - 10.1016/j.nima.2011.04.009
DO - 10.1016/j.nima.2011.04.009
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:79957625293
SN - 0168-9002
VL - 644
SP - 18
EP - 26
JO - Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
JF - Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
IS - 1
ER -