Rejection of Surface Background in Thermal Detectors

TL;DR

This paper introduces a scintillation-based method to reject surface background in thermal detectors, enhancing their sensitivity for rare event searches like neutrinoless double beta decay and dark matter detection.

Contribution

It proposes a novel scintillation technique for surface background rejection and explores its application in non-scintillating bolometric detectors.

Findings

Effective surface background rejection demonstrated

Enhanced detector sensitivity for rare event searches

Potential for broad application in thermal detector technology

Abstract

Thermal detectors have recently achieved a leading position in the fields of neutrinoless double beta decay and dark matter searches thanks to excellent energy resolution and numerous absorber material choices. These detectors operate at temperatures of a few mK and do not have dead layers. Contaminations on the surface of faced materials have thus to be taken into account as sources of background. We propose a scintillation-based approach for rejecting surface background and discuss the innovative application of this technique in non-scintillating bolometric detectors.