CRESST-II: dark matter search with scintillating absorbers
G. Angloher
b*, C. Bucci
d, C. Cozzini
a, F. von Feilitzsch
c, T. Frank
b, D. Hauff
b, S. Henry
a, Th. Jagemann
c, J. Jochum
c, H. Kraus
a, B. Majorovits
a, J. Ninkovic
b, F. Petricca
b, F. Pröbst
b, Y. Ramachers
a, W. Rau
c, W. Seidel
b, M. Stark
c, S. Uchaikin
b, L. Stodolsky
b, H.Wulandari
ca
Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RH, United Kingdom
b
MPI für Physik, Föhringer Ring 6, 80805 Munich, Germany
c
Physikdepartment, TU München, James-Franck-Str. 1, 85748 Garching, Germany
d
Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, 67010 Assergi, Italy
In the CRESST-II experiment, scintillating CaWO
4crystals are used as absorbers for direct WIMP (weakly
interacting massive particles) detection. Nuclear recoils can be discriminated against electron recoils by
measuring phonons and scintillation light simultaneously. The absorber crystal and the silicon light detector are
read out by tungsten superconducting phase transition thermometers (W-SPTs). Results on the sensitivity of
the phonon and the light channel, radiopurity, the scintillation properties of CaWO
4, and on the WIMP
sensitivity are presented.
Elsevier Science
1. INTRODUCTION The goal of the CRESST-II experiment is to improve the sensitivity on direct WIMP detection by active background discrimination. When scattering elastically on the absorber nuclei, WIMPs deposit energy causing a measurable temperature rise. In scintillating absorbers, the different light yield of electron and nuclear recoils can be used for active background discrimination. We have developed very sensitive cryogenic detectors to measure simultane-ously the temperature and the light signal caused by particle interactions in 300 g CaWO
4crystals (Fig. 1). First runs with two complete detector modules each have been performed in the
Gran Sasso
underground laboratory during the last months.
2. SCINTILLATING CAWO
4ABSORBERS
In CaWO
4, tungsten increases the sensitivity for spin independent WIMP interaction ( A
2, A = number of
nucleons). Crystal samples, however, differ considerably in radiopurity and light yield.
Figure 1. A detector module consists of a scintillating 300 g CaWO
4crystal (phonon channel) and a Si wafer (light channel), both read out by a W-SPT.
The set up is
surrounded by
reflective foil.
2.1. Detector properties
Our detectors consist of cylindrical CaWO
4crystals ( = 40 mm, h = 40 mm) read out by a W-SPT (6 x 4 mm
2, 200 nm thick) located on the crystal surface.
Transition temperatures as low as 7 mK have been achieved by adjusting deposition temperature (~ 480 °C)
and by depositing a buffer layer of SiO
2between the W film and the CaWO
4crystal.
As
CaWO
4is very sensitive to temperature
gradients, W
deposition,
photolithography and wet chemistry have to be done carefully. For W etching, a dilute mixture of NaH
2PO
4,
NaOH, and
Na
3Fe(CN)
6was used.
For detector
operation, each CaWO
4crystal is held by six
Teflon clamps,
designed to reduce mechanical stress on the crystal. The resistance of the W- SPT (~ 0.3 ) is measured by passing a constant current through the read-out circuit in which the thermometer is in parallel with a shunt resistor (~ 0.05 ) and a SQUID input coil [1].
Thus, a rise in the W- SPT’s resistance raises the current in the SQUID input coil.
The temperature of the detector is controlled by a dedicated heater, consisting of a Au wire ( = 25 m) that is bonded to a Au pad in the center of the W- SPT and to Al contact pads to either side of the thermometer (Fig.
2). The temperature of the W-SPT is kept constant by applying a controlled voltage across the Au wire heater. Additionally, the heater is used to inject test pulses for energy calibration and stability monitoring [2].
Figure 2. Geometry and connection scheme of a W-SPT on CaWO
4.
We obtained 100 % trigger efficiency for 2 keV heat pulses (baseline width 0.9 keV) and good energy resolution: E = 1.5 keV for 73 keV X- rays, E = 13 keV for 1.17 MeV ’s, and E
= 8 keV for 2.3 MeV
’s. Typically, the pulse shape can be described by
rise= 1.2 msec and
dec= 30 msec.
Contaminations from natural decay chains have been identified by their - decays. Whenever the temperature rise caused by -decays was
2
W
Au-pad Al-pad
thermal link (Au) bond wire
heater (Au)
electrical contact (Al)
CaWO
4W-SPT
Si-wafer
re fle ct iv e fo il
W-SPT
Elsevier Science
beyond the dynamic range of the W-SPT,
precise energy
information was extracted from signal duration. At energies of few ten keV, where the WIMP signal is expected, a background count rate of ~ 10 electron recoils / (kg keV day) has been measured.
2.2. Scintillation properties
A simple photomultiplier set-up is used to invest-igate the room temperature scintillation properties of CaWO
4. For irradiation with
60Co or
137