ELOISE -- Reliable background simulation at sub-keV energies

TL;DR

The paper introduces the ELOISE project, which aims to develop reliable background simulations at sub-keV energies for rare event detection experiments using $CaWO_4$ and $Al_2O_3$ targets.

Contribution

ELOISE provides validated and calibrated electromagnetic interaction simulations at very low energies, filling a gap in existing simulation tools for dark matter searches.

Findings

Experimental reference data for sub-keV interactions obtained.

Simulation code validated and calibrated against experimental data.

Enhanced reliability of background modeling at 10 eV-scale energies.

Abstract

$CaWO_4$ and $Al_2O_3$ are well-established target materials used by experiments searching for rare events like the elastic scattering off of a hypothetical Dark Matter particle. In recent years, experiments have reached detection thresholds for nuclear recoils at the 10 eV-scale. At this energy scale, a reliable Monte Carlo simulation of the expected background is crucial. However, none of the publicly available general-purpose simulation packages are validated at this energy scale and for these targets. The recently started ELOISE project aims to provide reliable simulations of electromagnetic particle interactions for this use case by obtaining experimental reference data, validating the simulation code against them, and, if needed, calibrating the code to the reference data.