Speaker
Description
Detection of low-energy solar and reactor neutrinos (neutrino fog) would be a milestone for direct dark matter searches. Backgrounds in excess of expectations prevent the detection of low-energy neutrino elastic scattering on nuclei in all types of detectors, and evidence is mounting that energy /charge trapping and delayed releases contribute to these phenomena.
Since we have demonstrated that UV light pumps energy into NaI(Tl), causing long-lasting delayed luminescence which can be quenched by red light exposure, the question arises if the production of long-leaving energy-bearing states /electron traps can be used to realize a ‘nano-explosive’ detection scheme. Here, neutrino coherent scattering or low-mass dark matter particle interactions that have too little energy to directly produce luminescence could instead release greater amounts of stored energy. With a controlled energy pumping scheme, this mechanism might provide a highly sensitive probe for low-energy nuclear recoils. We also describe how such dynamics might help to explain the DAMA-LIBRA observations.
This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. LLNL-ABS-864740
