Properties for liquid argon scintillation for dark matter searches

Understand

The scintillation yield for recoil Ar ions of 5 to 250 keV energy in liquid argon have been evaluated for direct dark matter searches.

• Lindhard theory is taken for estimating nuclear quenching.
• A theoretical model based on a biexcitonic diffusion-reaction mechanism is performed for electronic (scintillation) quenching.
• The electronic LET (linear energy transfer) is evaluated and used to obtain the initial track structure due to recoil Ar ions.