0000000000618667
AUTHOR
Scott Haselschwardt
Solar neutrino detection in liquid xenon detectors via charged-current scattering to excited states
We investigate the prospects for real-time detection of solar neutrinos via the charged-current neutrino-nucleus scattering process in liquid xenon time projection chambers. We use a nuclear shell model, benchmarked with experimental data, to calculate the cross sections for populating specific excited states of the caesium nuclei produced by neutrino capture on $^{131}$Xe and $^{136}$Xe. The shell model is further used to compute the decay schemes of the low-lying $1^{+}$ excited states of $^{136}$Cs, for which there is sparse experimental data. We explore the possibility of tagging the characteristic de-excitation $\gamma$-rays/conversion electrons using two techniques: spatial separation…
Improved calculations of beta decay backgrounds to new physics in liquid xenon detectors
We present high-precision theoretical predictions for the electron energy spectra for the ground-state to ground-state $\beta$ decays of $^{214}$Pb, $^{212}$Pb, and $^{85}$Kr most relevant to the background of liquid xenon dark matter detectors. The effects of nuclear structure on the spectral shapes are taken into account using large-scale shell model calculations. Final spectra also include atomic screening and exchange effects. The impact of nuclear structure effects on the $^{214}$Pb and $^{212}$Pb spectra below $\approx100$ keV, pertinent for several searches for new physics, are found to be comparatively larger than those from the atomic effects alone. We find that the full calculatio…