Why would you put a flashlight in a dark matter detector?

Abstract

Silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) are solid-state, single-photon sensitive, pixelated sensors whose usage for scintillation detection has rapidly increased over the past decade. It is known that the avalanche process within the device, which renders a single photon detectable, can also generate secondary photons which may be detected by a separate device. This effect, known as external crosstalk, could potentially degrade the science goals of future xenon dark matter experiments. In this article, we measure the effect of external crosstalk in a dual-phase, liquid xenon time projection chamber fully instrumented with SiPMs. We then consider the implications for a future xenon dark matter experiment utilizing SiPMs and discuss possible solutions.

Direct Detection of Dark Matter: A Critical Review

“…DarkSide-20k presents a lot of challenging aspects and many technological novelties compared with the existing TPCs for dark matter: first, the use of SiPM-based photodetector modules instead of standard PMTs to overcome the issue of cold electronics, with quite a few critical issues discussed in the literature [77,78]; second, extraction and distillation of more than 100 tons of U-Ar (in total), and preservation of its radio-purity; third, the realization of a very big multi-ton acrylic-based TPC with many challenges for high voltage, purity, and event pile-up handling; fourth, the use of multi-ton acrylic vessels; finally, a multi-ton gadolinium-doped acrylic veto. Even in the case of DarkSide-20k, it is not clear why the funding agency panels have not supported intermediate scale detectors (like e.g., 1-ton scale) with the intermediate physics goal of exploring the light dark matter mass, pushing instead for something bigger, just to fill the gap in a phantom competition with the xenon-based detectors.…”