Electron-ion recombination in composite interactions in liquid xenon
The response of liquid xenon to various types of ionizing radiation has been extensively studied theoretically and experimentally. Recent progress in direct detection dark matter experiments highlights the significance of composite events, where multiple particles interact with xenon simultaneously and generate overlapping ionization signatures. In these events, recombination of electrons and ions associated with different primary particles leads to additional suppression of the ionization signal, introducing a new source of uncertainty in dark matter searches and Migdal effect studies. We developed a model to estimate the recombination enhancement for overlapping low-energy particle interactions. This method, which has minimal dependence on xenon microphysics and is primarily driven by existing experimental data, yields predictions that are consistent with available measurements of composite interactions. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the model predictions are robust against xenon microphysics assumptions.
Authors
- C. E. Dahl (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1637-2346)
- J. Kim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4007-6440)
- C. A. Hardy (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4989-1700)
- R. L. Mannino (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0866-6344)
- Jing Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8084-5609)
- R. J. Gaitskell
- M. Szydagis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9334-4659)
- C. Levy (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8111-3549)
- Rouven Essig (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3066-0486)
- B. G. Lenardo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7345-5554)
- G. M. Blockinger (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6914-3793)
- C. S. Amarasinghe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7789-651X)
- A. C. Vaitkus
- W. H. Lippincott (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7279-6090)
- Ding Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0407-7542)
- J. Bang
- D. Adams (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2685-5897)
Institutions
- Northwestern University (US)
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (US)
- University of California, Santa Barbara (US)
- John Brown University (US)
- Brown University (US)
- SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (US)
- University at Albany, State University of New York (US)
- Stony Brook University (US)
- Stanford University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical review. D/Physical review. D.
- Published
- 2025-06-27
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/8bdr-6njs
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.87
Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Office of Science
- High Energy Physics
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
- SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory