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arXiv · 2001.09311

LBECA: A Low Background Electron Counting Apparatus for Sub-GeV Dark Matter Detection

A. Bernstein·M. Clark·R. Essig·M. Fernandez-Serra·A. Kopec·R. F. Lang·J. Long·K. Ni·S. Pereverzev·J. Qi·P. Sorensen·Y. Wei·J. Xu·J. Ye·C. Zhen
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Abstract

Two-phase noble liquid detectors, with large target masses and effective background reduction, are currently leading the dark matter direct detection for WIMP masses above a few GeV. Due to their sensitivity to single ionized electron signals, these detectors were shown to also have strong constraints for sub-GeV dark matter via their scattering on electrons. In fact, the most stringent direct detection constraints for sub-GeV dark matter down to as low as ~5 MeV come from noble liquid detectors, namely XENON10, DarkSide-50, XENON100 and XENON1T, although these experiments still suffer from high background at single or a few electron level. LBECA is a planned 100-kg scale liquid xenon detector with significant reduction of the single and a few electron background. The experiment will improve the sensitivity to sub-GeV dark matter by three orders of magnitude compared to the current best constraints.

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A. Bernstein, M. Clark, R. Essig, M. Fernandez-Serra, A. Kopec, R. F. Lang, J. Long, K. Ni, S. Pereverzev, J. Qi, P. Sorensen, Y. Wei, J. Xu, J. Ye, C. Zhen. 2020-01-25. LBECA: A Low Background Electron Counting Apparatus for Sub-GeV Dark Matter Detection. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1468/1/012035

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