Document Type
Presentation
Publication Date
2-18-2015
Abstract
Direct searches for dark matter using noble liquids, especially liquid xenon in recent years, have obtained the best sensitivities in the field for moderate to high-mass dark-matter WIMPs. Along with the development of this technology, there has been a continued effort in the community to better understand the detailed scintillation and ionization responses of noble liquids in the presence of low-energy ionizing radiation. As this body of knowledge is reaching a mature state, a unified software framework for simulating scintillation and ionization production in these detectors is strongly needed. In this talk, I introduce NEST: Noble Element Simulation Technique, which is an open-source simulation package based on physics models informed by the world's best data on the subject. I additionally present the method used for modeling electronic recoils, which comprise most of the background in a dark-matter search, and nuclear recoils (which dark matter should produce), and compare with available data.
Recommended Citation
Szydagis, Matthew M., "Grasping the Fundamental Physics of Xenon" (2015). Physics Faculty Scholarship. 40.
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/physics_fac_scholar/40
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