Calibration Plan for the SBC 10-kg Liquid Argon Detector with 100 eV Target Threshold

E. Alfonso-Pita; D. Baxter; E. Behnke; J. Corbett; M. Crisler; C. E. Dahl; K. Dering; A. de St. Croix; D. Durnford; P. Giampa; J. Hall; O. Harris; H. Hawley-Herrera; L. Joseph; A. Kucich; N. Lamb; M. Laurin; I. Levine; W. H. Lippincott; B. Mitra; R. Neilson; O. Nicholson; M. -C. Piro; G. Putnam; D. Pyda; Z. Sheng; G. Sweeney; O. Valdés-Martínez; E. Vázquez-Jáuregui; S. Westerdale; T. J. Whitis; S. Windle; A. Wright; E. Wyman; R. Zhang

arXiv · 2511.19817

Calibration Plan for the SBC 10-kg Liquid Argon Detector with 100 eV Target Threshold

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Abstract

The Scintillating Bubble Chamber (SBC) Collaboration is designing a new generation of low background, noble liquid bubble chamber experiments with sub-keV nuclear recoil threshold. These experiments combine the electronic recoil blindness of a bubble chamber with the energy resolution of noble liquid scintillation, and maintain electron recoil discrimination at higher degrees of superheat (lower nuclear recoil thresholds) than Freon-based bubble chambers. A 10-kg liquid argon bubble chamber has the potential to set world leading limits on the dark matter nucleon cross-section for $O(\mathrm{GeV}/c^{2})$ masses, and to perform a high statistics coherent elastic neutrino nuclear scattering measurement with reactor neutrinos. This work presents a detailed calibration plan to measure the detector response of these experiments, combining photoneutron scattering with two new techniques to induce sub-keV nuclear recoils: nuclear Thomson scattering and thermal neutron capture.

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E. Alfonso-Pita, D. Baxter, E. Behnke, J. Corbett, M. Crisler, C. E. Dahl, K. Dering, A. de St. Croix, D. Durnford, P. Giampa, J. Hall, O. Harris, H. Hawley-Herrera, L. Joseph, A. Kucich, N. Lamb, M. Laurin, I. Levine, W. H. Lippincott, B. Mitra, R. Neilson, O. Nicholson, M. -C. Piro, G. Putnam, D. Pyda, Z. Sheng, G. Sweeney, O. Valdés-Martínez, E. Vázquez-Jáuregui, S. Westerdale, T. J. Whitis, S. Windle, A. Wright, E. Wyman, R. Zhang. 2025-12-05. Calibration Plan for the SBC 10-kg Liquid Argon Detector with 100 eV Target Threshold. https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.19817

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