Characterization of event populations in the complete LZ data regime

Anthony's first year project will be studying the data collected in the "Oxford sensor" housekeeping data to evaluate its application to data quality and calibration studies.

His broader topic will be to understand all of the event populations in LZ, bringing together many threads of analysis strengths in our group.

Lz of course focuses upon a limited number of windows in our data: single scatter events in our dark matter ROI and similar single scatters at pertinent neutrino physics energies (for double electron capture and neutrinoless double beta decay, for instance).

Although background model fits are done across wider energy regions, and neutron calibrations are studies for their multiple scatters, a great deal of the LZ data is not given this same scrutiny.

This thesis project will seek to unify the known event populations with the detector effects and backgrounds to give a complete picture of the emitted scintillation light and ionized electrons in the detector: do the Geant4 predictions for multiple gamma-ray scatters match across the spectrum to our data?

Are there additional patterns to the light and charge emission that can become accidental coincident events?

In this work we can also provide clearer data from LZ, one of the 'quietest' detectors ever constructed, that can place limits of new physics over a broader range, allowing more models to be tested.

This broad approach to the data will also inform planning for a future XLZD detector, as we understand various event scalings (volume, various surface areas, etc) and look for effects that may emerge to greater prominence in a larger detector.

However, we will also position this project nimbly, and if a particular population of events requires greater study, it may dominate the effort.