We present an analysis of electron recoils in cryogenic germanium detectors operated during the SuperCDMS Soudan experiment. The data are used to set new constraints on the axioelectric coupling of axionlike particles and the kinetic mixing parameter of dark photons, assuming the respective species constitutes all of the galactic dark matter. This study covers the mass range from 40 eV=c 2 to 500 keV=c 2 for both candidates, excluding previously untested parameter space for masses below ∼1 keV=c 2. For the kinetic mixing of dark photons, values below 10 −15 are reached for particle masses around 100 eV=c 2 ; for the axioelectric coupling of axionlike particles, values below 10 −12 are reached for particles with masses in the range of a few-hundred eV=c 2 .
Two photo-neutron sources, 88 Y 9 Be and 124 Sb 9 Be, have been used to investigate the ionization yield of nuclear recoils in the CDMSlite germanium detectors by the SuperCDMS collaboration. This work evaluates the yield for nuclear recoil energies between 1 and 7 keV at a temperature of ∼ 50 mK. We use a GEANT4 simulation to model the neutron spectrum assuming a charge yield model that is a generalization of the standard Lindhard model and consists of two energy dependent parameters. We perform a likelihood analysis using the simulated neutron spectrum, modeled background, and experimental data to obtain the best fit values of the yield model. The ionization yield between recoil energies of 1 and 7 keV is shown to be significantly lower than predicted by the standard Lindhard model for germanium. There is a general lack of agreement among different experiments using a variety of techniques studying the low energy range of the nuclear recoil yield, which is most critical for interpretation of direct dark matter searches. This suggests complexity in the physical process that many direct detection experiments use to model their primary signal detection mechanism and highlights the need for further studies to clarify underlying systematic effects that have not been well understood up to this point.
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