Ionisation quenching factors from W-values in pure gases for rare event searches

• DOI: 10.1016/j.astropartphys.2022.102707
• Publication Date: 2022-04-09T02:09:24Z
• Authors: I. Katsioulas; P. Knights; K. Nikolopoulos
• Keywords: quenching; Ionisation quenching factor; FOS: Physical sciences; 7. Clean energy; dark matter; High Energy Physics - Experiment; High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex); 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; W-value; Nuclear recoil; 13. Climate action; gas; ionization; Dark matter; [PHYS.HEXP]Physics [physics]/High Energy Physics - Experiment [hep-ex]; scintillation counter: crystal; numerical calculations: Monte Carlo; Mean ionisation energy; recoil: energy; energy: low; experimental results

This work was performed in the context of the NEWS-G experiment. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sk\l{}odowska-Curie grant agreement no 841261 (DarkSphere)<br/>The effect of ionisation quenching for ions is critical for experiments relying on the measurement of low energy recoils, such as direct Dark Matter searches. We present ionisation quenching factor estimates over a range of energies for protons, $α$-particles, and heavier ions in H$_{2}$, CH$_{4}$, N$_{2}$, Ar, CO$_{2}$, and C$_{3}$H$_{8}$ gases, estimated from the respective reference W-value measurements. The resulting ionisation quenching factors are compared with predictions from SRIM.<br/>