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Electron-ion recombination in composite interactions in liquid xenon

J. Xu1,*, J. Kim2, B. Lenardo3, C. E. Dahl4, R. L. Mannino1, G. M. Blockinger5, C. A. Hardy6, D. Adams7, C. S. Amarasinghe2 et al.

J. Bang8, A. C. Vaitkus8, C. Ding8, W. H. Lippincott2, M. Szydagis5, C. Levy5, R. J. Gaitskell8, and R. Essig7

  • *Contact author: xu12@llnl.gov
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Phys. Rev. D 112, 012014 – Published 15 July, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/8bdr-6njs

Abstract

The response of liquid xenon to various types of ionizing radiation has been extensively studied theoretically and experimentally. Recent progress in direct detection dark matter experiments highlights the significance of composite events, where multiple particles interact with xenon simultaneously and generate overlapping ionization signatures. In these events, recombination of electrons and ions associated with different primary particles leads to additional suppression of the ionization signal, introducing a new source of uncertainty in dark matter searches and Migdal effect studies. We developed a model to estimate the recombination enhancement for overlapping low-energy particle interactions. This method, which has minimal dependence on xenon microphysics and is primarily driven by existing experimental data, yields predictions that are consistent with available measurements of composite interactions. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the model predictions are robust against xenon microphysics assumptions.

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Phys. Rev. D 112, 012014– Published 15 July, 2025
  • Received 11 March 2025
  • Accepted 27 June 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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