Ion-Channeling in Direct Dark Matter Crystalline Detectors

TL;DR

This paper evaluates how ion-channeling in crystalline detectors like NaI, Si, and Ge affects the detection signals in direct dark matter searches, using historical analytic models.

Contribution

It provides estimates of ion-channeling effects in dark matter detectors based on classical models, highlighting their potential impact on detection signals.

Findings

Channeling can significantly enhance recoil signals in certain crystals.

Analytic models from the 1960s are effective for estimating channeling effects.

The importance of channeling varies with crystal type and recoil direction.

Abstract

The channeling of the recoiling nucleus in crystalline detectors after a WIMP collision would produce a larger scintillation or ionization signal in direct detection experiments than otherwise expected. I present estimates of the importance of this effect in NaI, Si and Ge crystals, using analytic models developed from the 1960's onwards to describe channeling and blocking effects.