Measurement of the dead layer thickness in a p-type point contact germanium detector

A 994 g mass p-type PCGe detector has been deployed during the first phase of the China Dark matter EXperiment, aiming at direct searches for light weakly interacting massive particles. Measuring the thickness of the dead layer of a p-type germanium detector is an issue of major importance since it determines the fiducial mass of the detector. This work reports a method using an uncollimated ^133Ba source to determine the dead layer thickness. The experimental design, data analysis and Monte Carlo simulation processes, as well as the statistical and systematic uncertainties are described. A dead layer thickness of 1.02 mm was obtained based on a comparison between the experimental data and the simulated results.

Limits on light WIMPs with a 1 kg-scale germanium detector at 160 eVee physics threshold at the China Jinping Underground Laboratory

We report results of a search for light weakly interacting massive particle（WIMP） dark matter from the CDEX-1 experiment at the China Jinping Underground Laboratory（CJPL）. Constraints on WIMP-nucleon spin-independent（SI） and spin-dependent（SD） couplings are derived with a physics threshold of 160 eVee, from an exposure of 737.1 kg-days. The SI and SD limits extend the lower reach of light WIMPs to 2 GeV and improve over our earlier bounds at WIMP mass less than 6 GeV.