Searches for weakly interacting massive particles that may constitute the Galactic dark matter can be based on the detection of nuclear recoil events in NaI scintillator detectors.
For this purpose it is necessary to know the relative nai scintillator efficiency for nuclear recoil events. Presented here are the results of measurements of the efficiency for conversion of low energy I and Na nuclear recoil events into nai scintillator light in NaI(Tl).
The experiments were performed using elastic scattering of monoenergetic neutrons of energy 3.2–5.5 MeV. The relative nai scintillator efficiency was found to be about 30% for Na recoils, down to 15 keV, and 8% for I recoils, down to 27 keV.
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