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Abstract

We construct the first comprehensive radioactive background model for a dark matter search with charge-coupled devices (CCDs). We leverage the well-characterized depth and energy resolution of the DAMIC at SNOLAB detector and a detailed geant4-based particle-transport simulation to model both bulk and surface backgrounds from natural radioactivity down to $50  eV_{ee}$. We fit to the energy and depth distributions of the observed ionization events to differentiate and constrain possible background sources, for example, bulk $^3H$ from silicon cosmogenic activation and surface < $^{210}Pb$ from radon plate-out. We observe the bulk background rate of the DAMIC at SNOLAB CCDs to be as low as $3.1±0.6  counts kg^{−1} day^{−1} keV_{ee}^{-1}$, making it the most sensitive silicon dark matter detector. Finally, we discuss the properties of a statistically significant excess of events over the background model with energies below $200  eV_{ee}$.

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