Cryostat for Ultra-low-energy Threshold Germanium Spectrometers

TL;DR

This paper discusses the development of a specialized cryostat aimed at enabling germanium spectrometers to detect extremely low-energy events, which are crucial for dark matter and neutrino research.

Contribution

It introduces a new cryostat design with thermal and electrical models, and reports on prototype performance for ultra-low energy threshold detection.

Findings

Prototype cryostat achieved vacuum and thermal performance goals.

Design improvements suggest potential for thresholds below 0.5 keV.

Progress supports future low-energy nuclear recoil detection applications.

Abstract

This paper presents progress on the development of a cryostat intended to improve upon the low-energy threshold (below 0.5 keV) of p-type point contact germanium gamma-ray spectrometers. Ultra-low energy thresholds are important in the detection of low-energy nuclear recoils, an event class relevant to both dark matter direct detection and measurement of coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering. The cryostat design, including a thermal and electrical-field model, is given. A prototype cryostat has been assembled and data acquired to evaluate its vacuum and thermal performance.