Low Energy Phonon Bursts Created By Fast Neutron Damage
Solid state athermal phonon calorimeters used in the search for low mass dark matter or coherent neutrino-nucleus interactions have long observed a large excess of events below several hundred eV. The relaxation of damage created by the interaction of fast cosmic ray neutrons with the detector has been proposed as a source of these excess events. By comparing neutron exposed detectors to control detectors, we report the first measurement of phonon bursts caused by damage created by fast neutrons. Differences in the spectral shape, the rate dependence on thermal history, and the observed spectral rate scaled to the neutron exposure between irradiated and control detectors suggest that our observed LEE backgrounds are not dominated by neutron damage-induced phonon bursts.