Calibration of the liquid argon ionization response to low energy electronic and nuclear recoils with DarkSide-50
DarkSide-50 has demonstrated the high potential of dual-phase liquid argon time projection chambers in exploring interactions of WIMPs in the GeV=c 2 mass range. The technique, based on the detection of the ionization signal amplified via electroluminescence in the gas phase, allows us to explore recoil energies down to the sub-keV range. We report here on the DarkSide-50 measurement of the ionization yield of electronic recoils down to ~180 eV er , exploiting 37 Ar and 39 Ar decays, and extrapolated to a few ionization electrons with the Thomas-Imel box model. Further, we present a model-dependent determination of the ionization response to nuclear recoils down to ~500 eV nr , the lowest ever achieved in liquid argon, using in situ neutron calibration sources and external datasets from neutron beam experiments.