Study on cosmogenic radioactive production in germanium as a background for future rare event search experiments

Rare event search experiments are one of the most important topics in the field of fundamental physics,and high-purity germanium(HPGe)detectors with an ultralow radioactive background are frequently used for such experiments.However,cosmogenic activation contaminates germanium crystals during transport and storage.In this study,we investigated the movable shielding containers of HPGe crystals using Geant4 and CRY Monte Carlo simulations.The production rates of 68Ge,65Zn,60Co,55Fe,and 3H were obtained individually for different types of cosmic rays.The validity of the simulation was confirmed through a comparison with the available experimental data.Based on this simulation,we found that the interactions induced by neutrons contribute to approximately 90%of the production rate of cosmogenic activation.In addition,by adding an optimized shielding structure,the production rates of cosmogenic radionuclides are reduced by about one order of magnitude.Our results show that it is feasible to use a shielding container to reduce the cosmogenic radioactivity produced during the transport and storage of high-purity germanium on the ground.

Identification of anomalous fast bulk events in a p-type point-contact germanium detector

The ultralow detection threshold,ultralow intrinsic background,and excellent energy resolution of ptype point-contact germanium detectors are important for rare-event searches,in particular for the detection of direct dark matter interactions,coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering,and neutrinoless double beta decay.Anomalous bulk events with an extremely fast rise time are observed in the CDEX-1B detector.We report a method of extracting fast bulk events from bulk events using a pulse shape simulation and reconstructed source experiment signature.Calibration data and the distribution of X-rays generated by intrinsic radioactivity verified that the fast bulk experienced a single hit near the passivation layer.The performance of this germanium detector indicates that it is capable of single-hit bulk spatial resolution and thus provides a background removal technique.

Searching for ^(76)Ge neutrinoless double beta decay with the CDEX-1B experiment

We operated a p-type point contact high purity germanium(PPCGe)detector(CDEX-1B,1.008 kg)in the China Jinping Underground Laboratory(CJPL)for 500.3 days to search for neutrinoless double beta(0νββ)decay of ^(76)Ge.A total of 504.3 kg⋅day effective exposure data was accumulated.The anti-coincidence and the multi/single-site event(MSE/SSE)discrimination methods were used to suppress the background in the energy region of interest(ROI,1989–2089 keV for this work)with a factor of 23.A background level of 0.33 counts/(keV⋅kg⋅yr)was realized.The lower limit on the half life of^(76)Ge 0νββdecay was constrained as T_(1/2)^(0ν)>1.0×10^(23)yr(90%C.L.),corresponding to the upper limits on the effective Majorana neutrino mass:<mββ><3.2–7.5 eV.

Cryogenic phonon-detector model with solid argon for detecting dark matter

Over the past few years,phonon detectors have emerged as a prevailing technology for detecting lowmass dark matter due to their low thresholds and high resolution.These detectors,which employ either dual-phase detectors combining phonon-light or phonon-electron interactions,have significantly advanced direct dark matter detection efforts.Argon,as a low-background and high-reserve detection medium,has also played a crucial role in this field.Both liquid-argon single-phase detectors and gas-liquid two-phase time projection chambers(TPCs)have contributed substantially to the direct detection of high-mass dark matter.By integrating these distinct detector types,the upper limits of the corresponding mass cross-section in dark matter detection can be lowered.We propose a phonon detector utilizing solid argon as the absorber,which combines the advantages of both aforementioned detector types.However,due to the requirement for an ultra-low temperature environment in the tens of millikelvin(mK)range,experimental investigations of solid argon phonon detector performance are currently constrained by technical limitations.Therefore,the performance analysis of the solid argon phonon detector presented in this study is only based on sapphire phonon detectors.Although there may be discrepancies between this approximation and the actual performance,the intrinsic characteristics of phonon detectors permit a qualitative evaluation of the solid argon phonon detector's potential capabilities.