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SENSEI at SNOLAB: Single-Electron Event Rate and Implications for Dark Matter

  • SENSEI Collaboration
  • University of California at Berkeley
  • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
  • The University of Chicago
  • Austrian Academy of Sciences
  • TU Wien
  • Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
  • Tel Aviv University
  • University of Oregon
  • SNOLAB
  • Universidad de Buenos Aires
  • Instituto de Física de Buenos Aires (IFIBA)
  • Université Grenoble Alpes
  • Universidad Nacional de Córdoba
  • Stony Brook University

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present results from data acquired by the SENSEI experiment at SNOLAB after a major upgrade in May 2023, which includes deploying 16 new sensors and replacing the copper trays that house the CCDs with a new light-tight design. We observe a single-electron event rate of (1.39±0.11)×10-5 e-/pix/day, corresponding to (39.8±3.1) e-/gram/day. This is an order-of-magnitude improvement compared to the previous lowest single-electron rate in a silicon detector and the lowest for any photon detector in the wavelength range between near-infrared and ultraviolet. We use these data to obtain a 90% confidence level upper bound of 1.53×10-5 e-/pix/day and to set constraints on sub-GeV dark matter candidates that produce single-electron events. We hypothesize that the data taken at SNOLAB in the previous run, with an older tray design for the sensors, contained a larger rate of single-electron events due to light leaks. We test this hypothesis using data from the SENSEI detector located in the MINOS cavern at Fermilab.

Original languageEnglish
Article number161002
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume134
Issue number16
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 25 2025

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