Simulation of argon response and light detection in the DarkSide-50 dual phase TPC

Agnes, P.;Albuquerque, I. F. M.;Alexander, T.;Alton, A. K.;Asner, D. M.;Back, H. O.;Biery, K.;Bocci, V.;Bonfini, G.;Bonivento, W.;Bossa, M.;Bottino, B.;Budano, F.;Bussino, S.;Cadeddu, M.;Cadoni, M.;Calaprice, F.;Canci, N.;Candela, A.;Caravati, M.;Cariello, M.;Carlini, M.;Catalanotti, S.;Cataudella, V.;Cavalcante, P.;Chepurnov, A.;Cicalo, C.;Cocco, A. G.;Covone, G.;D'angelo, D.;D'incecco, M.;Davini, S.;De Candia, A.;De Cecco, S.;De Deo, M.;De Filippis, G.;De Vincenzi, M.;Derbin, A. V.;De Rosa, G.;Devoto, A.;Di Eusanio, F.;Di Pietro, G.;Dionisi, C.;Edkins, E.;Empl, A.;Fan, A.;Fiorillo, G.;Fomenko, K.;Franco, D.;Gabriele, F.;Galbiati, C.;Giagu, S.;Giganti, C.;Giovanetti, G. K.;Goretti, A. M.;Granato, F.;Gromov, M.;Guan, M.;Guardincerri, Y.;Hackett, B. R.;Herner, K.;Hughes, D.;Humble, P.;Hungerford, E. V.;Ianni, A. N.;James, I.;Johnson, T. N.;Keeter, K.;Kendziora, C. L.;Koh, G.;Korablev, D.;Korga, G.;Kubankin, A.;Li, X.;Lissia, M.;Loer, B.;Longo, G.;Ma, Y.;Machado, A. A.;Machulin, I. N.;Mandarano, A.;Mari, S. M.;Maricic, J.;Martoff, C. J.;Meyers, P. D.;Milincic, R.;Monte, A.;Mount, B. J.;Muratova, V. N.;Musico, P.;Napolitano, J.;Agasson, A. Navrer;Oleinik, A.;Orsini, M.;Ortica, F.;Pagani, L.;Pallavicini, M.;Pantic, E.;Pelczar, K.;Pelliccia, N.;Pocar, A.;Pordes, S.;Pugachev, D. A.;Qian, H.;Randle, K.;Razeti, M.;Razeto, A.;Reinhold, B.;Renshaw, A. L.;Rescigno, M.;Riffard, Q.;Romani, A.;Rossi, B.;Rossi, N.;Sablone, D.;Sands, W.;Sanfilippo, S.;Savarese, C.;Schlitzer, B.;Segreto, E.;Semenov, D. A.;Singh, P. N.;Skorokhvatov, M. D.;Smirnov, O.;Sotnikov, A.;Stanford, C.;Suvorov, Y.;Tartaglia, R.;Testera, G.;Tonazzo, A.;Trinchese, P.;Unzhakov, E. V.;Verducci, M.;Vishneva, A.;Vogelaar, B.;Wada, M.;Walker, S.;Wang, H.;Wang, Y.;Watson, A. W.;Westerdale, S.;Wilhelmi, J.;Wojcik, M. M.;Xiang, X.;Xiao, X.;Yang, C.;Ye, Z.;Zhu, C.;Zuzel, G.

2017-01-01

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Abstract

A Geant4-based Monte Carlo package named G4DS has been developed to simulate the response of DarkSide-50, an experiment operating since 2013 at LNGS, designed to detect WIMP interactions in liquid argon. In the process of WIMP searches, DarkSide-50 has achieved two fundamental milestones: the rejection of electron recoil background with a power of ∼107, using the pulse shape discrimination technique, and the measurement of the residual39Ar contamination in underground argon, ∼3 orders of magnitude lower with respect to atmospheric argon. These results rely on the accurate simulation of the detector response to the liquid argon scintillation, its ionization, and electron-ion recombination processes. This work provides a complete overview of the DarkSide Monte Carlo and of its performance, with a particular focus on PARIS, the custom-made liquid argon response model.