Speaker
Description
Direct dark matter searches necessitate low backgrounds. Experiments using the noble liquids xenon and argon have obtained very low background levels, but along with the development of the single and dual-phase technologies there has been a continued effort in the community to better understand the detailed scintillation and ionization responses of noble liquids in the presence of low-energy particles, as a function of energy, dE/dx, electric fields, and particle type. As this body of knowledge is reaching a mature state, a unified, predictive software framework for simulating the production of quanta in these detectors is strongly needed. In this talk, I will discuss the current status of NEST: Noble Element Simulation Technique, which is a simulation package based on reasonable empirical models informed by the world's best data on the subject. I will present on the methods used for modeling electronic recoils, nuclear recoils, and quantification of the misidentification of the former as the latter, the primary means of determining the ability to discriminate against residual backgrounds. I will compare NEST models to data, and use TeV-scale WIMPs as an example of a possible signal. Although the focus will be on xenon, existing work on argon will be summarized.
