Demonstration of the HeRALD superfluid helium detector concept
The SPICE/HeRALD collaboration is performing research and development to enable studies of sub-GeV dark matter models using a variety of target materials. Here we report our recent progress on instrumenting a superfluid $^{4}\mathrm{He}$ target mass with a transition-edge sensor based calorimeter to detect both atomic signals (scintillation) and $^{4}\mathrm{He}$ quasiparticle (phonon and roton) excitations. The sensitivity of HeRALD to the critical ``quantum evaporation'' signal from $^{4}\mathrm{He}$ quasiparticles requires us to block the superfluid film flow to the calorimeter. We have developed a heat-free film-blocking method employing an unoxidized Cs film, which we implemented in a prototype ``HeRALD v0.1'' detector of $\ensuremath{\sim}10\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{g}$ target mass. This article reports initial studies of the atomic and quasiparticle signal channels. A key result of this work is the measurement of the quantum evaporation channel's gain of $0.15\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.01$, which will enable $^{4}\mathrm{He}$-based dark matter experiments in the near term. With this gain the HeRALD detector reported here has an energy threshold of 145 eV at $5\ensuremath{\sigma}$, which would be sensitive to dark matter masses down to $220\text{ }\mathrm{MeV}/{\mathrm{c}}^{2}$.
Authors
- L. Chaplinsky
- A. Biekert
- J. Lin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9970-8150)
- Wei Guo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9251-0360)
- V. Velan
- S. L. Watkins
- Robin Anthony-Petersen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7261-0885)
- P. Sørensen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5056-9391)
- Mark Platt (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9195-7216)
- G. Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1385-3806)
- B. Serfass (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4681-4109)
- W. Matava (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9939-7786)
- R. K. Romani (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9556-1876)
- R. Mahapatra
- B. Suerfu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0259-7392)
- A. Suzuki
- A. Serafin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9534-0280)
- P. K. Patel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7225-5964)
- M. R. Williams
- Scott Hertel
- Y. Wang
- M. Pyle (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3490-6754)
- G. R. C. Rischbieter (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8190-7998)
- B. Penning (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9020-9112)
- C. L. Chang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6311-0448)
- C. W. Fink
- H. D. Pinckney (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0985-6070)
- Y.-Y. Chang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6441-980X)
- Xiao‐Hua Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3399-6057)
- Qi Yan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5236-9673)
- Mark A. Reed (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3065-3849)
- D. N. McKinsey
- R. J. E. Smith (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8516-3324)
- J. K. Wuko (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-7071-7925)
- D. Z. Osterman
- A. Dushkin
- M. Garcia-Sciveres (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5800-4210)
Institutions
- Florida State University (US)
- Argonne National Laboratory (US)
- Florida A&M University - Florida State University College of Engineering (US)
- High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (JP)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US)
- University of Massachusetts Amherst (US)
- University of Michigan (US)
- Mitchell Institute (US)
- National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (US)
- International Center for Quantum-field Measurement Systems for Studies of the Universe and Particles
- Texas A&M University (US)
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical review. D/Physical review. D.
- Published
- 2024-10-08
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.110.072006
- Citations
- 10
- Primary Topic
- Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 6.60
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Florida State University
- National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
- National Nuclear Security Administration
- Division of Materials Research
- High Energy Physics
- High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Argonne National Laboratory
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory