Search for: All records

Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEνNS) offers a valuable approach in searching for physics beyond the Standard Model. The Ricochet experiment aims to perform a precision measurement of the CEνNS spectrum at the Institut Laue-Langevin nuclear reactor with cryogenic solid-state detectors. The experiment will employ an array of cryogenic thermal detectors, each with a mass of around 30 g and an energy threshold of 50 eV. One section of this array will contain 9 Transition Edge Sensor (TES)-based calorimeters. The design will not only fulfill requirements for Ricochet, but also act as a demonstrator for future neutrino experiments that will require thousands of macroscopic detectors. In this article, we present an updated TES chip design, as well as performance predictions based on a numerical modeling. 

Abstract The performance of superconducting qubits is degraded by a poorly characterized set of energy sources breaking the Cooper pairs responsible for superconductivity, creating a condition often called “quasiparticle poisoning”. Both superconducting qubits and low threshold dark matter calorimeters have observed excess bursts of quasiparticles or phonons that decrease in rate with time. Here, we show that a silicon crystal glued to its holder exhibits a rate of low-energy phonon events that is more than two orders of magnitude larger than in a functionally identical crystal suspended from its holder in a low-stress state. The excess phonon event rate in the glued crystal decreases with time since cooldown, consistent with a source of phonon bursts which contributes to quasiparticle poisoning in quantum circuits and the low-energy events observed in cryogenic calorimeters. We argue that relaxation of thermally induced stress between the glue and crystal is the source of these events.