arXiv subjects

Vanessa Zema

Publications and source records attributed to Vanessa Zema.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

The relative interfacial thermal contraction as a possible origin of the low-energy excess in cryogenic calorimeters

Low threshold cryogenic calorimeters are a key technology for the advancement of rare-event searches. However, since a few years their sensitivity reach is challenged by the presence of a rising spectrum at low energies named low-energy excess (LEE), ascribed to an unknown background. In this work, we describe the LEE as absorber events induced by the relative thermal-contraction coefficient mismatch between the absorber and the SiO$_2$ amorphous layer underneath the transition-edge sensors (TESs), present for example in the case of CRESST detectors. The relative contraction in processes with temperature changes, such as during sensor fabrication and cooldown from room temperature to the temperature of operation, can induce surface dislocation nucleation. Other interfaced materials with thermal-expansion mismatch can also generate dislocations during temperature-variation processes. We formulate a simple elastic model to bridge this solid-state effect and the LEE observations. Double-TES modules have been designed to provide surface background rejection. We highlight that the presence of the LEE in the coincident event band of double-TES modules does not exclude the explanation given in this work. Exemplary, we discuss the role of the thermal boundary resistance between absorber and sensor as explanation for the presence of the LEE in the coincident-event band. We propose detector designs to test these hypotheses and mitigate the LEE.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2025

Excitonic contributions to dark matter-electron scattering

We determine whether excitonic effects affect predictions of dark matter (DM)-electron scattering rates by calculating the energy- and momentum-dependent energy-loss function, including electron-hole interaction excitonic effects, for the dark-matter scintillating detector materials GaAs and NaI. By comparing our results using the Bethe-Salpeter equation in the framework of many-body perturbation theory, which explicitly includes excitonic effects, with those using the quasiparticle random-phase approximation, which includes only electron-electron interaction and crystal local-field effects, we find that excitonic effects in NaI significantly increase the predicted scattering rate at low energy and as a result improve the cross-section sensitivity considering a realistic background. In contrast, the predicted scattering rate and the DM-electron scattering cross-section for GaAs are minimally affected by excitonic effects.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

Prospects for Dark Matter signal discovery and model selection via timing information in a low-threshold experiment

In the recent years, many low-threshold dark matter (DM) direct detection experiments have reported the observation of unexplained excesses of events at low energies. Exemplary for these, the experiment CRESST has detected unidentified events below an energy of about 200 eV - a result hampering the detector performance in the search for GeV-scale DM. In this work, we test the impact of nuclear recoil timing information on the potential for DM signal discovery and model selection on a low-threshold experiment limited by the presence of an unidentified background resembling this population of low-energy events. Among the different targets explored by the CRESST collaboration, here we focus on Al2O3, as a sapphire detector was shown to reach an energy threshold as low as 19.7 eV [1]. We test the ability of a low-threshold experiment to discover a signal above a given background, or to reject the spin-independent (SI) interaction in favour of a magnetic dipole (MD) coupling in terms of p-values. We perform our p-value calculations: 1) taking timing information into account; and 2) assuming that the latter is not available. By comparing the two approaches, we find that under our assumptions timing information has a marginal impact on the potential for DM signal discovery, while provides more significant results for the selection between the two models considered. For the model parameters explored here, we find that the p-value for rejecting SI-interactions in favour of a MD-coupling is about 0.11 when the experimental exposure is 460 g x year and smaller (about 0.06) if timing information is available. The conclusion on the role of timing information remains qualitatively unchanged for exposures as large as 1 kg x year. At the same time, our results show that a 90% C.L. rejection of SI-interactions in favour of a MD-coupling is within reach of an upgrade of the CRESST experiment [2].

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

Direct detection of fermionic and vector dark matter with polarised targets

We study the scattering of Milky Way dark matter (DM) particles by spin-polarised target nuclei within a set of simplified models for fermionic and vector DM where DM interacts with spin 1/2 point-like nuclei through the exchange of a vector or pseudo-vector mediator particle. This study is motivated by the possibility of using polarised targets to gain novel insights into the nature of DM. For fermionic DM, we provide an explicit expression for the polarised DM-nucleus scattering cross section refining previous results found in the literature. For vector DM, we calculate the polarised cross section for DM-nucleus scattering for the first time. We find that polarised targets can in principle be used to discriminate fermionic from vector DM.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

The formalism of neutrino oscillations: an introduction

The recent wide recognition of the existence of neutrino oscillations concludes the pioneer stage of these studies and poses the problem of how to communicate effectively the basic aspects of this branch of science. In fact, the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations has peculiar features and requires to master some specific idea and some amount of formalism. The main aim of these introductory notes is exactly to cover these aspects, in order to allow the interested students to appreciate the modern developments and possibly to begin to do research in neutrino oscillations.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2014

Photometry of Delta Scorpii from 1996 to 2013 using SOHO LASCO C3 coronograph

The variabile star Delta Scorpii is in conjunction with the Sun at the end of November each year. We studied its magnitude by averaging the observations of 28 Nov - 1 Dec from 1996 to 2013 using the coronograph LASCO C3 on-board the SOHO Satellite and we extended of four years, i.e. 25 % of the total light curve, back to 1996, with respect to the present AAVSO dataset on this star. The 0.2 magnitude scatters of the single measurements have been studied and the sources of such disturbances are vignetting and diffraction patterns from the coronograph. The new data collected on Delta Scorpii show its minimum at mv=2.5 magnitudes for 1996 and 1997, confirming the values observed during the minimum of 2009, and the main periodicity of 11 years in the stellar variability.

astro-ph.SR↗