Journal article
Quenching factor measurements of sodium nuclear recoils in NaI:Tl determined by spectrum fitting
LJ Bignell, I Mahmood, F Nuti, GJ Lane, A Akber, E Barberio, T Baroncelli, BJ Coombes, W Dix, JTH Dowie, T Eriksen, MSM Gerathy, TJ Gray, BP McCormick, AJ Mitchell, MS Rahman, F Scutti, NJ Spinks, AE Stuchbery, H Timmers Show all
Journal of Instrumentation | Published : 2021
Abstract
We have performed measurements of sodium nuclear recoils in NaI:Tl crystals, following scattering by neutrons produced in a 7Li(p,n)7Be reaction. Understanding the light output from such recoils, which is reduced relative to electrons of equivalent energy by the quenching factor, is critical to interpret dark matter experiments that search for nuclear scattering interactions. We have developed a spectrum-fitting methodology to extract the quenching factor from our measurements, and report quenching factors for nuclear recoil energies between 36 and 401 keV. Our results agree with other recent quenching factor measurements that use quasi-monoenergetic neutron sources. The new method will be a..
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Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the technical staff at the ANU Heavy Ion Accelerator Facility, who fabricated detector housings, built the beamline hardware, and carefully aligned the detectors in the correct geometry. We would also like to thank A. Duffy from Swinburne University for the use of his NaI:Tl crystal. This work was supported by the Australian Research Council Discovery Program through project number DP170101675.