Low energy recoil detection with a spherical proportional counter
Résumé
We present results for the detection of low energy nuclear recoils in the keV energy region, from measurements performed with the Spherical Proportional Counter (SPC). An 241 Am- 9 Be fast neutron source is used in order to obtain neutron–nucleus elastic scattering events inside the gaseous volume of the detector. The detector performance in the keV energy region was measured by observing the 5.9 keV line of a 55 Fe X-ray source, with energy resolution of 10% ( σ ). The toolkit GEANT4 was used to simulate the irradiation of the detector by an 241 Am- 9 Be source, while SRIM was used to calculate the Ionization Quenching Factor (IQF), the simulation results are compared with the measurements. The potential of the SPC in low energy recoil detection makes the detector a good candidate for a wide range of applications, including Supernova or reactor neutrino detection and Dark Matter (WIMP) searches (via coherent elastic scattering).