September 29, 2025 to October 3, 2025
Place des Arts, Downtown Sudbury
Canada/Eastern timezone

Scintillation and Cherenkov Light Separation in a Liquid Argon Detector

Oct 3, 2025, 10:00 AM
25m
Place des Arts, Downtown Sudbury

Place des Arts, Downtown Sudbury

27 Larch St, Greater Sudbury, ON P3E 1B7
Plenary Talk Contributed Talk Plenary Talks

Speaker

Darcy Newmark (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Description

This talk will present the first event-by-event observation of Cherenkov radiation from sub-MeV electrons in a high-yield scintillator (liquid argon) detector, representing a milestone in low-energy particle detector development and one of the major goals of 2021 Snowmass Process. This work utilizes the Coherent CAPTAIN-Mills (CCM) experiment, a 10-ton liquid argon light collection detector located at the Los Alamos National Lab pion decays at rest source. The detector is instrumented with 200 8-inch PMTs, 80% of which are coated in a wavelength shifter and 20% are uncoated. Using gamma-rays from a sodium-22 radioactive source, we have isolated prompt Chernekov light with >5 sigma confidence, possible through the unique combination of coated and uncoated PMTs. Cherenkov light identification allows for a highly pure selection of electromagnetic events, enabling exciting beyond Standard Model physics searches that I will review.

Submitter Name Darcy Newmark
Submitter Email dnewmark@mit.edu
Submitter Institution Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Primary author

Darcy Newmark (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Presentation materials

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