# IDM2010

Jul 26 – 30, 2010
Montpellier 2 University
Europe/Paris timezone

## Lowering the low-energy threshold of xenon-based detectors

Jul 26, 2010, 2:20 PM
20m
Amphithéatre Dumontet (Montpellier 2 University)

### Amphithéatre Dumontet

#### Montpellier 2 University

Place Eugene Bataillon, 34095 Montpellier Cedex 5 FRANCE

### Speaker

Dr Peter Sorensen (LLNL)

### Description

The XENON10 Experiment has already reported exclusion limits for spin-independent, spin-dependent and inelastic couplings of nuclei to particle dark matter. Recently, there has been considerable (perhaps, renewed) interest in light-mass $\mathcal{O}(10)$~GeV dark matter candidates. In this mass range, the sensitivity of XENON10 drops sharply, due to the low-energy threshold. The low-energy threshold is limited by the collection of primary scintillation photons following a particle interaction, and begins to drop between $5-8$~keV nuclear recoil energy. We discuss recent modeling of that threshold, and show how this affects the resulting sensitivity of the experiment. The methods are applicable to other xenon-based detectors such as XENON100 and LUX. Finally, we explore the possibility of using only the proportional scintillation signal (the ionization channel). In so doing, traditional S2/S1 discrimination must be abandoned, but the resulting energy threshold of $\sim1$~keV nuclear recoil energy leads to interesting constraints on viable dark matter models. This work will also be of interest to the possibile detection of coherent neutrino scattering.

### Primary author

Dr Peter Sorensen (LLNL)

### Co-author

Collaboration XENON10 ((multiple))

 Slides