Heidelberg 2007 – scientific programme

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 508: Dunkle Materie und niederenergetische Neutrinos

T 508.4: Talk

Friday, March 9, 2007, 14:45–15:00, KIP SR 2.403

Characterization of Recoiling Nuclei from Surface Alpha Decays in CRESST — •Wolfgang Westphal, Christian Ciemniak, Chiara Coppi, Franz von Feilitzsch, Achim Gütlein, Christian Isaila, Jean-Côme Lanfranchi, Sebastian Pfister, Walter Potzel, Wolfgang Rau, Sabine Roth, and Michael Stark — Physikdepartment E15, Technische Universität München, James-Franck-Straße, 85748 Garching

The CRESST (=Cryogenic Rare Event Search with Superconducting Thermometers) experiment searches for dark matter particles (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, WIMPs) via nuclear scattering using cryogenic detectors. The simultaneous measurement of the phonon signal and the scintillation light from the target CaWO₄ crystal allows to veto effectively background from βs and γs due to the different light output for electron and nuclear recoils. As dark matter events are expected to cause nuclear recoils in the energy region up to 40 keV (for tungsten recoils), the background in this region has to be understood very well. This background includes recoiling nuclei from alpha decays on surfaces close to the detector. Measurements with a ²¹⁰Po source have been performed to characterize the detector response to this kind of events. Results of these measurements will be shown.

This work has been supported by funds of the DFG (SFB 375, Transregio 27: Neutrinos and Beyond), the Munich Cluster of Excellence (Origin and Structure of the Universe) and the Maier-Leibnitz-Laboratorium (Garching).