Searching for keV Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter with X-ray Microcalorimeter Sounding Rockets

Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, Adam J. Anderson, Daniel Castro, David C. Goldfinger, John Rutherford, Megan E. Eckart, Richard L. Kelley, Caroline A. Kilbourne, Dan McCammon, Kelsey Morgan, Frederick Scott Porter, Andrew E. Szymkowiak

High-resolution X-ray spectrometers onboard suborbital sounding rockets can search for dark matter candidates that produce X-ray lines, such as decaying keV-scale sterile neutrinos. Even with exposure times and effective areas far smaller than XMM-Newton and Chandra observations, high-resolution, wide field-of-view observations with sounding rockets have competitive sensitivity to decaying sterile neutrinos. We analyze a subset of the 2011 observation by the X-ray Quantum Calorimeter instrument centered on Galactic coordinates l = 165, b = -5 with an effective exposure of 106 seconds, obtaining a limit on the sterile neutrino mixing angle of sin^2(2 theta) < 7.2e-10 at 95% CL for a 7 keV neutrino. Better sensitivity at the level of sin^2(2 theta) ~ 2.1e-11 at 95\% CL for a 7 keV neutrino is achievable with future 300-second observations of the galactic center by the Micro-X instrument, providing a definitive test of the sterile neutrino interpretation of the reported 3.56 keV excess from galaxy clusters.

Optimized Designs for Very Low Temperature Massive Calorimeters

Matt Pyle, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, Bernard Sadoulet

The baseline energy-resolution performance for the current generation of large-mass, low-temperature calorimeters (utilizing TES and NTD sensor technologies) is $>2$ orders of magnitude worse than theoretical predictions. A detailed study of several calorimetric detectors suggests that a mismatch between the sensor and signal bandwidths is the primary reason for suppressed sensitivity. With this understanding, we propose a detector design in which a thin-film Au pad is directly deposited onto a massive absorber that is then thermally linked to a separately fabricated TES chip via an Au wirebond, providing large electron-phonon coupling (i.e. high signal bandwidth), ease of fabrication, and cosmogenic background suppression. Interestingly, this design strategy is fully compatible with the use of hygroscopic crystals (NaI) as absorbers. An 80-mm diameter Si light detector based upon these design principles, with potential use in both dark matter and neutrinoless double beta decay, has an estimated baseline energy resolution of 0.35 eV, 20$\times$ better than currently achievable. A 1.75 kg ZnMoO$_{4}$ large-mass calorimeter would have a 3.5 eV baseline resolution, 1000$\times$ better than currently achieved with NTDs with an estimated position dependence $\frac{ΔE}{E}$ of 6$\times$10$^{-4}$. Such minimal position dependence is made possible by forcing the sensor bandwidth to be much smaller than the signal bandwidth. Further, intrinsic event timing resolution is estimated to be $\sim$170 $μ$s for 3 MeV recoils in the phonon detector, satisfying the event-rate requirements of large $Q_{ββ}$ next-generation neutrinoless double beta decay experiments. Quiescent bias power for both of these designs is found to be significantly larger than parasitic power loads achieved in the SPICA/SAFARI infrared bolometers.

First Operation of TES Microcalorimeters in Space with the Micro-X Sounding Rocket

J. S. Adams, R. Baker, S. R. Bandler, N. Bastidon, M. E. Danowski, W. B. Doriese, M. E. Eckart, E. Figueroa-Feliciano, D. C. Goldfinger, S. N. T. Heine, G. C. Hilton, A. J. F. Hubbard, R. L. Kelley, C. A. Kilbourne, R. E. Manzagol-Harwood, D. McCammon, T. Okajima, F. S. Porter, C. D. Reintsema, P. Serlemitsos, S. J. Smith, J. N. Ullom, P. Wikus

Micro-X is a sounding rocket-borne instrument that uses a microcalorimeter array to perform high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy. This instrument flew for the first time on July 22nd, 2018 from the White Sands Missile Range, USA. This flight marks the first successful operation of a Transition-Edge Sensor array and its time division multiplexing read-out system in space. This launch was dedicated to the observation of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. A failure in the attitude control system prevented the rocket from pointing and led to no time on target. The on-board calibration source provided X-rays in flight, and it is used to compare detector performance during pre-flight integration, flight, and after the successful post-flight recovery. This calibration data demonstrates the capabilities of the detector in a space environment as well as its potential for future flights.

Groups and the Entropy Floor- XMM-Newton Observations of Two Groups

R. Mushotzky, E. Figueroa-Feliciano, M. Loewenstein, S. L. Snowden

Using XMM-Newton spatially resolved X-ray imaging spectroscopy we obtain the temperature, density, entropy, gas mass, and total mass profiles for two groups of galaxies out to ~0.3 Rvir (Rvir, the virial radius). Our density profiles agree well with those derived previously, and the temperature data are broadly consistent with previous results but are considerably more precise. Both of these groups are at the mass scale of 2x10^13 Msolar but have rather different properties. They have considerably lower gas mass fractions at r<0.3 Rvir than the rich clusters. NGC2563, one of the least luminous groups for its X-ray temperature, has a very low gas mass fraction of ~0.004 inside 0.1 Rvir, which rises with radius. NGC4325, one of the most luminous groups at the same average temperature, has a higher gas mass fraction of 0.02. The entropy profiles and the absolute values of the entropy as a function of virial radius also differ, with NGC4325 having a value of ~100 keV cm-2 and NGC2563 a value of ~300 keV cm-2 at r~0.1 Rvir. For both groups the profiles rise monotonically with radius and there is no sign of an entropy "floor". These results are inconsistent with pre-heating scenarios which have been developed to explain the entropy floor in groups but are broadly consistent with models of structure formation which include the effects of heating and/or the cooling of the gas. The total entropy in these systems provides a strong constraint on all models of galaxy and group formation, and on the poorly defined feedback process which controls the transformation of gas into stars and thus the formation of structure in the universe.

Single Electron-Hole Pair Sensitive Silicon Detector with Surface Event Rejection

Ziqing Hong, Runze Ren, Noah Kurinsky, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, Lise Wills, Suhas Ganjam, Rupak Mahapatra, Nader Mirabolfathi, Brian Nebolsky, H. Douglas Pinckney, Mark Platt

We demonstrate single electron-hole pair resolution in a single-sided, contact-free 1 cm$^2$ by 1 mm thick Si crystal operated at 48 mK, with a baseline energy resolution of 3 eV. This crystal can be operated at voltages in excess of $\pm50$ V, resulting in a measured charge resolution of 0.06 electron-hole pairs. The high aluminum coverage ($\sim$70%) of this device allows for the discrimination of surface events and separation of events occurring near the center of the detector from those near the edge. We use this discrimination ability to show that non-quantized dark events seen in previous detectors of a similar design are likely dominated by charge leakage along the side wall of the device.

Modeling Athermal Phonons in Novel Materials using the G4CMP Simulation Toolkit

Israel Hernandez, Ryan Linehan, Rakshya Khatiwada, Kester Anyang, Daniel Baxter, Grace Bratrud, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, Lauren Hsu, Mike Kelsey, Dylan Temples

Understanding phonon and charge propagation in superconducting devices plays an important role in both performing low-threshold dark matter searches and limiting correlated errors in superconducting qubits. The Geant4 Condensed Matter Physics (G4CMP) package, originally developed for the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) experiment, models charge and phonon transport within silicon and germanium detectors and has been validated by experimental measurements of phonon caustics, mean charge-carrier drift velocities, and heat pulse propagation times. In this work, we present a concise framework for expanding the capabilities for phonon transport to a number of other novel substrate materials of interest to the dark matter and quantum computing communities, including sapphire (Al$_{2}$O$_{3}$), gallium arsenide (GaAs), lithium fluoride (LiF), calcium tungstate (CaWO$_{4}$), and calcium fluoride (CaF$_{2}$). We demonstrate the use of this framework in generating phonon transport properties of these materials and compare these properties with experimentally-determined values where available.

Characterization of a TES-based Anti-Coincidence Detector for Future Large Field-of-View X-ray Calorimetry Missions

Samuel V. Hull, Joseph S. Adams, Simon R. Bandler, Matthew Cherry, James A. Chervenak, Renata Cumbee, Xavier Defay, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, Fred M. Finkbeiner, Joshua Fuhrman, Richard L. Kelley, Christopher Kenney, Caroline A. Kilbourne, Noah Kurinsky, Jennette Mateo, Haruka Muramatsu, Frederick S. Porter, Kazuhiro Sakai, Aviv Simchony, Stephen J. Smith, Zoe Smith, Nicholas A. Wakeham, Edward J. Wassell, Sang H. Yoon, Betty A. Young

Microcalorimeter instruments aboard future X-ray observatories will require an anti-coincidence (anti-co) detector to veto charged particle events and reduce the non-X-ray background. We have developed a large-format, TES-based prototype anti-coincidence detector that is particularly suitable for use with spatially-extended (~ 10 cm^2}) TES microcalorimeter arrays, as would be used for a future large field-of-view X-ray missions. This prototype was developed in the context of the Line Emission Mapper (LEM) probe concept, which required a ~ 14 cm^2 anti-co detector with > 95% live time and a low-energy threshold below 20 keV. Our anti-co design employs parallel networks of quasiparticle-trap-assisted electrothermal feedback TESs (QETs) to detect the athermal phonon signal produced in the detector substrate by incident charged particles. We developed multiple prototype anti-co designs featuring 12 channels and up to 6300 QETs. Here we focus on a design utilizing tungsten TESs and present characterization results. Broad energy range measurements have been performed (4.1 keV -- 5.5 MeV). Based on noise and responsivity measurements, the implied low-energy threshold is < 1 keV and a live time fraction of > 96% can be achieved up to 5.5 MeV. We also find evidence of mm-scale-or-better spatial resolution and discuss the potential utility of this for future missions. Finally, we discuss the early development of a soild-state physics model of the anti-co towards understanding phonon propagation and quasiparticle production in the detector.

Vibration Isolation Design for the Micro-X Rocket Payload

Sarah N. T. Heine, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, John M. Rutherford, Patrick Wikus, Phil Oakley, Frederick S. Porter, Dan McCammon

Micro-X is a NASA-funded, sounding rocket-borne X-ray imaging spectrometer that will allow high precision measurements of velocity structure, ionization state and elemental composition of extended astrophysical systems. One of the biggest challenges in payload design is to maintain the temperature of the detectors during launch. There are several vibration damping stages to prevent energy transmission from the rocket skin to the detector stage, which causes heating during launch. Each stage should be more rigid than the outer stages to achieve vibrational isolation. We describe a major design effort to tune the resonance frequencies of these vibration isolation stages to reduce heating problems prior to the projected launch in the summer of 2014.

Fermi LAT Observations of Supernova Remnants Interacting with Molecular Clouds: W41, MSH 17-39, and G337.0-0.1

Daniel Castro, Patrick Slane, Ashley Carlton, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano

We report the detection of gamma-ray emission coincident with three supernova remnants (SNRs) using data from the Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. W41, MSH 17-39, and G337.0-0.1 are SNRs known to be interacting with molecular clouds, as evidenced by observations of hydroxyl (OH) maser emission at 1720 MHz in their directions and other observational information. SNR shocks are expected to be sites of cosmic ray acceleration, and clouds of dense material can provide effective targets for production of gamma-rays from neutral pion-decay. The observations reveal unresolved sources in the direction of G337.0-0.1, and MSH 17-39, and an extended source coincident with W41. We model their broadband emission (radio to gamma-ray) using a simple one-zone model, and after considering scenarios in which the MeV-TeV sources originate from either neutral pion-decay or leptonic emission, we conclude that the gamma-rays are most likely produced through the hadronic channel.

A Decade-Baseline Study of the Plasma States of Ejecta Knots in Cassiopeia A

John Rutherford, Daniel Dewey, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, Sarah N. T. Heine, Fabienne A. Bastien, Kosuke Sato, C. R. Canizares

We present the analysis of 21 bright X-ray knots in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant from observations spanning 10 yr. We performed a comprehensive set of measurements to reveal the kinematic and thermal state of the plasma in each knot, using a combined analysis of two high energy resolution High Energy Transmission Grating (HETG) and four medium energy resolution Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) sets of spectra. The ACIS electron temperature estimates agree with the HETG-derived values for approximately half of the knots studied, yielding one of the first comparisons between high resolution temperature estimates and ACIS-derived temperatures. We did not observe the expected spectral evolutionpredicted from the ionization age and density estimates for each knotin all but three of the knots studied. The incompatibility of these measurements with our assumptions has led us to propose a dissociated ejecta model, with the metals unmixed inside the knots, which could place strong constraints on supernova mixing models.

US Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter 2017: Community Report

Marco Battaglieri, Alberto Belloni, Aaron Chou, Priscilla Cushman, Bertrand Echenard, Rouven Essig, Juan Estrada, Jonathan L. Feng, Brenna Flaugher, Patrick J. Fox, Peter Graham, Carter Hall, Roni Harnik, JoAnne Hewett, Joseph Incandela, Eder Izaguirre, Daniel McKinsey, Matthew Pyle, Natalie Roe, Gray Rybka, Pierre Sikivie, Tim M. P. Tait, Natalia Toro, Richard Van De Water, Neal Weiner, Kathryn Zurek, Eric Adelberger, Andrei Afanasev, Derbin Alexander, James Alexander, Vasile Cristian Antochi, David Mark Asner, Howard Baer, Dipanwita Banerjee, Elisabetta Baracchini, Phillip Barbeau, Joshua Barrow, Noemie Bastidon, James Battat, Stephen Benson, Asher Berlin, Mark Bird, Nikita Blinov, Kimberly K. Boddy, Mariangela Bondi, Walter M. Bonivento, Mark Boulay, James Boyce, Maxime Brodeur, Leah Broussard, Ranny Budnik, Philip Bunting, Marc Caffee, Sabato Stefano Caiazza, Sheldon Campbell, Tongtong Cao, Gianpaolo Carosi, Massimo Carpinelli, Gianluca Cavoto, Andrea Celentano, Jae Hyeok Chang, Swapan Chattopadhyay, Alvaro Chavarria, Chien-Yi Chen, Kenneth Clark, John Clarke, Owen Colegrove, Jonathon Coleman, David Cooke, Robert Cooper, Michael Crisler, Paolo Crivelli, Francesco D'Eramo, Domenico D'Urso, Eric Dahl, William Dawson, Marzio De Napoli, Raffaella De Vita, Patrick DeNiverville, Stephen Derenzo, Antonia Di Crescenzo, Emanuele Di Marco, Keith R. Dienes, Milind Diwan, Dongwi Handiipondola Dongwi, Alex Drlica-Wagner, Sebastian Ellis, Anthony Chigbo Ezeribe, Glennys Farrar, Francesc Ferrer, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, Alessandra Filippi, Giuliana Fiorillo, Bartosz Fornal, Arne Freyberger, Claudia Frugiuele, Cristian Galbiati, Iftah Galon, Susan Gardner, Andrew Geraci, Gilles Gerbier, Mathew Graham, Edda Gschwendtner, Christopher Hearty, Jaret Heise, Reyco Henning, Richard J. Hill, David Hitlin, Yonit Hochberg, Jason Hogan, Maurik Holtrop, Ziqing Hong, Todd Hossbach, T. B. Humensky, Philip Ilten, Kent Irwin, John Jaros, Robert Johnson, Matthew Jones, Yonatan Kahn, Narbe Kalantarians, Manoj Kaplinghat, Rakshya Khatiwada, Simon Knapen, Michael Kohl, Chris Kouvaris, Jonathan Kozaczuk, Gordan Krnjaic, Valery Kubarovsky, Eric Kuflik, Alexander Kusenko, Rafael Lang, Kyle Leach, Tongyan Lin, Mariangela Lisanti, Jing Liu, Kun Liu, Ming Liu, Dinesh Loomba, Joseph Lykken, Katherine Mack, Jeremiah Mans, Humphrey Maris, Thomas Markiewicz, Luca Marsicano, C. J. Martoff, Giovanni Mazzitelli, Christopher McCabe, Samuel D. McDermott, Art McDonald, Bryan McKinnon, Dongming Mei, Tom Melia, Gerald A. Miller, Kentaro Miuchi, Sahara Mohammed Prem Nazeer, Omar Moreno, Vasiliy Morozov, Frederic Mouton, Holger Mueller, Alexander Murphy, Russell Neilson, Tim Nelson, Christopher Neu, Yuri Nosochkov, Ciaran O'Hare, Noah Oblath, John Orrell, Jonathan Ouellet, Saori Pastore, Sebouh Paul, Maxim Perelstein, Annika Peter, Nguyen Phan, Nan Phinney, Michael Pivovaroff, Andrea Pocar, Maxim Pospelov, Josef Pradler, Paolo Privitera, Stefano Profumo, Mauro Raggi, Surjeet Rajendran, Nunzio Randazzo, Tor Raubenheimer, Christian Regenfus, Andrew Renshaw, Adam Ritz, Thomas Rizzo, Leslie Rosenberg, Andre Rubbia, Ben Rybolt, Tarek Saab, Benjamin R. Safdi, Elena Santopinto, Andrew Scarff, Michael Schneider, Philip Schuster, George Seidel, Hiroyuki Sekiya, Ilsoo Seong, Gabriele Simi, Valeria Sipala, Tracy Slatyer, Oren Slone, Peter F Smith, Jordan Smolinsky, Daniel Snowden-Ifft, Matthew Solt, Andrew Sonnenschein, Peter Sorensen, Neil Spooner, Brijesh Srivastava, Ion Stancu, Louis Strigari, Jan Strube, Alexander O. Sushkov, Matthew Szydagis, Philip Tanedo, David Tanner, Rex Tayloe, William Terrano, Jesse Thaler, Brooks Thomas, Brianna Thorpe, Thomas Thorpe, Javier Tiffenberg, Nhan Tran, Marco Trovato, Christopher Tully, Tony Tyson, Tanmay Vachaspati, Sven Vahsen, Karl van Bibber, Justin Vandenbroucke, Anthony Villano, Tomer Volansky, Guojian Wang, Thomas Ward, William Wester, Andrew Whitbeck, David A. Williams, Matthew Wing, Lindley Winslow, Bogdan Wojtsekhowski, Hai-Bo Yu, Shin-Shan Yu, Tien-Tien Yu, Xilin Zhang, Yue Zhao, Yi-Ming Zhong

Readout strategies for directional dark matter detection beyond the neutrino background

Ciaran A. J. O'Hare, Anne M. Green, Julien Billard, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, Louis E. Strigari

The search for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) by direct detection faces an encroaching background due to coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering. As the sensitivity of these experiments improves, the question of how to best distinguish a dark matter signal from neutrinos will become increasingly important. A proposed method of overcoming this so-called 'neutrino floor' is to utilize the directional signature that both neutrino and dark matter induced recoils possess. We show that directional experiments can indeed probe WIMP-nucleon cross-sections below the neutrino floor with little loss in sensitivity due to the neutrino background. In particular we find at low WIMP masses (around 6 GeV) the discovery limits for directional detectors penetrate below the non-directional limit by several orders of magnitude. For high WIMP masses (around 100 GeV), the non-directional limit is overcome by a factor of a few. Furthermore we show that even for directional detectors which can only measure 1- or 2-dimensional projections of the 3-dimensional recoil track, the discovery potential is only reduced by a factor of 3 at most. We also demonstrate that while the experimental limitations of directional detectors, such as sense recognition and finite angular resolution, have a detrimental effect on the discovery limits, it is still possible to overcome the ultimate neutrino background faced by non-directional detectors.

The Extreme Physics Explorer

Michael Garcia, Martin Elvis, Jay Bookbinder, Laura Brenneman, Esra Bulbul, Paul Nulsen, Dan Patnaude, Randall Smith, Simon Bandler, Takashi Okajima, Andy Ptak, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, Deepto Chakrabarty, Rolf Danner, Dean Daily, George Fraser, Richard Willingale, Jon Miller, T. J. Turner, Guido Risalti, Massimiliano Galeazzi

A non-proprietary Mission Concept available for presentation to NASA, providing High Area, High Resolution Imaging Spectroscopy and Timing with Arcmin Angular Resolution Submitted in response to NASA 2011 RFI NNH11ZDA018L 'Concepts for the Next NASA X-ray Astronomy Mission'

Micro-X Sounding Rocket: Transitioning from First Flight to a Dark Matter Configuration

J. S. Adams, A. J. Anderson, R. Baker, S. R. Bandler, N. Bastidon, D. Castro, M. E. Danowski, W. B. Doriese, M. E. Eckart, E. Figueroa-Feliciano, D. C. Goldfinger, S. N. T. Heine, G. C. Hilton, A. J. F. Hubbard, R. L. Kelley, C. A. Kilbourne, R. E. Manzagol-Harwood, D. McCammon, T. Okajima, F. S. Porter, C. D. Reintsema, P. Serlemitsos, S. J. Smith, P. Wikus

The Micro-X sounding rocket flew for the first time on July 22, 2018, becoming the first program to fly Transition-Edge Sensors and multiplexing SQUID readout electronics in space. While a rocket pointing failure led to no time on-target, the success of the flight systems was demonstrated. The successful flight operation of the instrument puts the program in a position to modify the payload for indirect galactic dark matter searches. The payload modifications are motivated by the science requirements of this observation. Micro-X can achieve world-leading sensitivity in the keV regime with a single flight. Dark matter sensitivity projections have been updated to include recent observations and the expected sensitivity of Micro-X to these observed fluxes. If a signal is seen (as seen in the X-ray satellites), Micro-X can differentiate an atomic line from a dark matter signature.

Design and Characterization of a Phonon-Mediated Cryogenic Particle Detector with an eV-Scale Threshold and 100 keV-Scale Dynamic Range

R. Ren, C. Bathurst, Y. Y. Chang, R. Chen, C. W. Fink, Z. Hong, N. A. Kurinsky, N. Mast, N. Mishra, V. Novati, G. Spahn, H. Meyer zu Theenhausen, S. L. Watkins, Z. Williams, M. J. Wilson, A. Zaytsev, D. Bauer, R. Bunker, E. Figueroa-Feliciano, M. Hollister, L. Hsu, P. Lukens, R. Mahapatra, N. Mirabolfathi, B. Nebolsky, M. Platt, F. Ponce, M. Pyle, T. Reynolds, T. Saab

We present the design and characterization of a cryogenic phonon-sensitive 1-gram Si detector exploiting the Neganov-Trofimov-Luke effect to detect single-charge excitations. This device achieved 2.65(2)~eV phonon energy resolution when operated without a voltage bias across the crystal and a corresponding charge resolution of 0.03 electron-hole pairs at 100~V bias. With a continuous-readout data acquisition system and an offline optimum-filter trigger, we obtain a 9.2~eV threshold with a trigger rate of the order of 20~Hz. The detector's energy scale is calibrated up to 120~keV using an energy estimator based on the pulse area. The high performance of this device allows its application to different fields where excellent energy resolution, low threshold, and large dynamic range are required, including dark matter searches, precision measurements of coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering, and ionization yield measurements.

First Flight Performance of the Micro-X Microcalorimeter X-Ray Sounding Rocket

Joseph S. Adams, Robert Baker, Simon R. Bandler, Noemie Bastidon, Daniel Castro, Meredith E. Danowksi, William B. Doriese, Megan E. Eckart, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, Joshua Fuhrman, David C. Goldfinger, Sarah N. T. Heine, Gene Hilton, Antonia J. F. Hubbard, Daniel Jardin, Richard L. Kelley, Caroline A. Kilbourne, Steven W. Leman, Renee E. Manzagol-Harwood, Dan McCammon, Philip H. H. Oakley, Takashi Okajima, Frederick Scott Porter, Carl D. Reintsema, John Rutherford, Tarek Saab, Kosuke Sato, Peter Serlemitsos, Stephen J. Smith, Yang Soong, Patrick Wikus

The flight of the Micro-X sounding rocket on July 22, 2018 marked the first operation of Transition-Edge Sensors and their SQUID readouts in space. The instrument combines the microcalorimeter array with an imaging mirror to take high-resolution spectra from extended X-ray sources. The first flight target was the Cassiopeia~A Supernova Remnant. While a rocket pointing malfunction led to no time on-target, data from the flight was used to evaluate the performance of the instrument and demonstrate the flight viability of the payload. The instrument successfully achieved a stable cryogenic environment, executed all flight operations, and observed X-rays from the on-board calibration source. The flight environment did not significantly affect the performance of the detectors compared to ground operation. The flight provided an invaluable test of the impact of external magnetic fields and the instrument configuration on detector performance. This flight provides a milestone in the flight readiness of these detector and readout technologies, both of which have been selected for future X-ray observatories.

Dark Sectors 2016 Workshop: Community Report

Jim Alexander, Marco Battaglieri, Bertrand Echenard, Rouven Essig, Matthew Graham, Eder Izaguirre, John Jaros, Gordan Krnjaic, Jeremy Mardon, David Morrissey, Tim Nelson, Maxim Perelstein, Matt Pyle, Adam Ritz, Philip Schuster, Brian Shuve, Natalia Toro, Richard G Van De Water, Daniel Akerib, Haipeng An, Konrad Aniol, Isaac J. Arnquist, David M. Asner, Henning O. Back, Keith Baker, Nathan Baltzell, Dipanwita Banerjee, Brian Batell, Daniel Bauer, James Beacham, Jay Benesch, James Bjorken, Nikita Blinov, Celine Boehm, Mariangela Bondí, Walter Bonivento, Fabio Bossi, Stanley J. Brodsky, Ran Budnik, Stephen Bueltmann, Masroor H. Bukhari, Raymond Bunker, Massimo Carpinelli, Concetta Cartaro, David Cassel, Gianluca Cavoto, Andrea Celentano, Animesh Chaterjee, Saptarshi Chaudhuri, Gabriele Chiodini, Hsiao-Mei Sherry Cho, Eric D. Church, D. A. Cooke, Jodi Cooley, Robert Cooper, Ross Corliss, Paolo Crivelli, Francesca Curciarello, Annalisa D'Angelo, Hooman Davoudiasl, Marzio De Napoli, Raffaella De Vita, Achim Denig, Patrick deNiverville, Abhay Deshpande, Ranjan Dharmapalan, Bogdan Dobrescu, Sergey Donskov, Raphael Dupre, Juan Estrada, Stuart Fegan, Torben Ferber, Clive Field, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, Alessandra Filippi, Bartosz Fornal, Arne Freyberger, Alexander Friedland, Iftach Galon, Susan Gardner, Francois-Xavier Girod, Sergei Gninenko, Andrey Golutvin, Stefania Gori, Christoph Grab, Enrico Graziani, Keith Griffioen, Andrew Haas, Keisuke Harigaya, Christopher Hearty, Scott Hertel, JoAnne Hewett, Andrew Hime, David Hitlin, Yonit Hochberg, Roy J. Holt, Maurik Holtrop, Eric W. Hoppe, Todd W. Hossbach, Lauren Hsu, Phil Ilten, Joe Incandela, Gianluca Inguglia, Kent Irwin, Igal Jaegle, Robert P. Johnson, Yonatan Kahn, Grzegorz Kalicy, Zhong-Bo Kang, Vardan Khachatryan, Venelin Kozhuharov, N. V. Krasnikov, Valery Kubarovsky, Eric Kuflik, Noah Kurinsky, Ranjan Laha, Gaia Lanfranchi, Dale Li, Tongyan Lin, Mariangela Lisanti, Kun Liu, Ming Liu, Ben Loer, Dinesh Loomba, Valery E. Lyubovitskij, Aaron Manalaysay, Giuseppe Mandaglio, Jeremiah Mans, W. J. Marciano, Thomas Markiewicz, Luca Marsicano, Takashi Maruyama, Victor A. Matveev, David McKeen, Bryan McKinnon, Dan McKinsey, Harald Merkel, Jeremy Mock, Maria Elena Monzani, Omar Moreno, Corina Nantais, Sebouh Paul, Michael Peskin, Vladimir Poliakov, Antonio D Polosa, Maxim Pospelov, Igor Rachek, Balint Radics, Mauro Raggi, Nunzio Randazzo, Blair Ratcliff, Alessandro Rizzo, Thomas Rizzo, Alan Robinson, Andre Rubbia, David Rubin, Dylan Rueter, Tarek Saab, Elena Santopinto, Richard Schnee, Jessie Shelton, Gabriele Simi, Ani Simonyan, Valeria Sipala, Oren Slone, Elton Smith, Daniel Snowden-Ifft, Matthew Solt, Peter Sorensen, Yotam Soreq, Stefania Spagnolo, James Spencer, Stepan Stepanyan, Jan Strube, Michael Sullivan, Arun S. Tadepalli, Tim Tait, Mauro Taiuti, Philip Tanedo, Rex Tayloe, Jesse Thaler, Nhan V. Tran, Sean Tulin, Christopher G. Tully, Sho Uemura, Maurizio Ungaro, Paolo Valente, Holly Vance, Jerry Vavra, Tomer Volansky, Belina von Krosigk, Andrew Whitbeck, Mike Williams, Peter Wittich, Bogdan Wojtsekhowski, Wei Xue, Jong Min Yoon, Hai-Bo Yu, Jaehoon Yu, Tien-Tien Yu, Yue Zhang, Yue Zhao, Yiming Zhong, Kathryn Zurek

Characterization of mini-CryoCube detectors from the Ricochet experiment commissioning at the Institut Laue-Langevin

Antoine Armatol, Corinne Augier, Louis Bailly-Salins, Guillaume Baulieu, Laurent Bergé, Julien Billard, Juliette Blé, Guillaume Bres, Jean-Louis Bret, Alexandre Broniatowski, Martino Calvo, Antonella Cavanna, Antoine Cazes, Emanuela Celi, David Chaize, Mohammed Chala, Maurice Chappellier, Luke Chaplinsky, Guillaume Chemin, Ran Chen, Jules Colas, Laurent Couraud, Elspeth Cudmore, Maryvonne De Jesus, Nicole Dombrowski, Louis Dumoulin, Alan Durnez, Olivier Exshaw, Sylvain Ferriol, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, Joseph A. Formaggio, Stephane Fuard, Jules Gascon, Andrea Giuliani, Corinne Goy, Cyrille Guerin, Elsa Guy, Leïla Haegel, Scott A. Hertel, Christophe Hoarau, Ziqing Hong, Jean-Christophe Ianigro, Yong Jin, Alexandre Juillard, Temirlan Khussainov, Andrew Kubik, Jacob Lamblin, Hugues Lattaud, Tatiana Le-Bellec, Laetitia Leroy, Mingyu Li, Alexey Lubashevskiy, Stefanos Marnieros, Nicolas Martini, Julien Minet, Alessandro Monfardini, Franck Mounier, Valentina Novati, Emiliano Olivieri, Pratyush K. Patel, Eric Perbet, Harold Douglas Pinckney, Denys V. Poda, Dmitrii Ponomarev, Wouter Van De Pontseele, Jean-Sébastien Real, Faith C. Reyes, Alejandro Rodriguez, Murielle Rousseau, Sergey Rozov, Irina Rozova, Brianna Ryan, Deeksha Sabhari, Silvia Scorza, Renaud Serra, Yegor Shevchik, Torsten Soldner, Anne Stutz, Christian Ulysse, Lionel Vagneron, Sergey Vasilyev, Francis Vezzu, Paul Vittaz, Evgeny Yakushev, Jiatong Yang, Daniya Zinatulina

The Ricochet experiment aims to measure the coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering process from antineutrinos emitted by a research nuclear reactor operated by the Institut Laue-Langevin (Grenoble, France). This article presents a description of the Ricochet experimental installation and the detector performance achieved during its commissioning with a mini-CryoCube module consisting of three 42-gram germanium cryogenic calorimeters. The baseline resolutions and background levels are reported both during reactor-on and reactor-off periods, and as noise mitigation techniques were improved. A baseline resolution of 40 eV electron equivalent was achieved for the ionization channel after setup improvements, and the phonon channel resolutions ranged from 50 to 80 eV of total phonon energy. In the energy region from 2 to 7 keV, a nuclear recoil rate of 15(2) events/(kg day keV) is measured during the reactor-off period selecting events in coincidence with muon veto signals. This rate is in agreement with the cosmogenic neutron rate calculated from GEANT4 simulations. After the rejection of events in coincidence with signals in the muon veto detectors, a combined 90% C.L. limit on the nuclear recoil background of < 9 events/(kg day keV) is obtained in that energy region during the reactor-on period, which is compatible with our GEANT4 model calculation corresponding to a total rate of 5 events/(kg day keV). The sensitivity of this analysis was however found to be limited by a surface event contamination which is currently being addressed by the Ricochet Collaboration with upgraded detectors.

Performance of a SuperCDMS HVeV Detector with Sub-eV Energy Resolution and Single Charge-sensitivity

Kyle Kennard, Aditi Pradeep, Mason Buchanan, Hope Fu, Aviv Simchony, Qihua Wang, Emanuele Michielin, Taylor Aralis, Elspeth Cudmore, Priscilla Cushman, Miriam Diamond, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, Caleb Fink, Simon Harms, Bruce A. Hines, Ziqing Hong, Martin E. Huber, Andrew Kubik, Noah Kurinsky, Rupak Mahapatra, Valentina Novati, Lekhraj Pandey, Pratyush K. Patel, Weigeng Peng, Mark Platt, Ry Pressman-Cyna, Wolfgang Rau, Runze Ren, Tyler Reynolds, James Ryan, Tarek Saab, David Sadek, Benjamin Schmidt, Zoë Smith, Sidney Stevens, Kelly Stifter, Matthew Stukel, Julius Viol, Yongqi Wang, Matthew James Wilson, Betty Young, Stefan Zatschler, Hazal Zenger, Ariel Zuñiga-Reyes

We present a detailed characterization of a new generation of athermal-phonon single-charge sensitive Si HVeV detectors, the best of which achieved 612 meV $\pm$ 4 meV baseline resolution. Our sub-eV energy resolution enables precise measurements of single-photon events and reveal consistent energy losses of 0.81 eV $\pm$ 0.03 eV per charge excitation across two facilities. We demonstrate that the noise for these detectors is well described using a standard Transition Edge Sensor noise model. We also place upper bounds on the nominal phonon collection efficiency of 45\%, establishing these detectors as the most efficient athermal phonon detectors to date, limited only by intrinsic limitations of quasiparticle generation.

A Chandra View Of Nonthermal Emission In The Northwestern Region Of Supernova Remnant RCW 86: Particle Acceleration And Magnetic Fields

Daniel Castro, Laura A. Lopez, Patrick O. Slane, Hiroya Yamaguchi, Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano

The shocks of supernova remnants (SNRs) are believed to accelerate particles to cosmic ray (CR) energies. The amplification of the magnetic field due to CRs propagating in the shock region is expected to have an impact on both the emission from the accelerated particle population, as well as the acceleration process itself. Using a 95 ks observation with the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) onboard the Chandra X-ray Observatory, we map and characterize the synchrotron emitting material in the northwestern region of RCW 86. We model spectra from several different regions, filamentary and diffuse alike, where emission appears dominated by synchrotron radiation. The fine spatial resolution of Chandra allows us to obtain accurate emission profiles across 3 different non-thermal rims in this region. The narrow width (l = 10''-30'') of these filaments constrains the minimum magnetic field strength at the post-shock region to be approximately 80 μG.