High-pressure xenon gas time projection chamber with scalable design and its performance at around the Q value of $^{136}$Xe double-beta decay

Bibliographic Details
Title: High-pressure xenon gas time projection chamber with scalable design and its performance at around the Q value of $^{136}$Xe double-beta decay
Authors: Yoshida, Masashi, Nakamura, Kazuhiro, Akiyama, Shinichi, Ban, Sei, Hikida, Junya, Hirose, Masanori, Ichikawa, Atsuko K., Iwashita, Yoshihisa, Kashino, Yukimasa, Kikawa, Tatsuya, Minamino, Akihiro, Miuchi, Kentaro, Nakajima, Yasuhiro, Nakamura, Kiseki D., Nakaya, Tsuyoshi, Obara, Shuhei, Sakashita, Ken, Sekiya, Hiroyuki, Shinagawa, Hibiki, Sugashima, Bungo, Urano, Soki
Source: Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Volume 2024 Issue 1, 013H01
Publication Year: 2023
Collection: High Energy Physics - Experiment
Nuclear Experiment
Physics (Other)
Subject Terms: Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors, High Energy Physics - Experiment, Nuclear Experiment
More Details: We have been developing a high-pressure xenon gas time projection chamber (TPC) to search for neutrinoless double beta ($0\nu\beta\beta$) decay of $^{136}$Xe. The unique feature of this TPC is in the detection part of ionization electrons, called ELCC. ELCC is composed of multiple units, and one unit covers 48.5 $\mathrm{cm}^2$. A 180 L size prototype detector with 12 units, 672 channels, of ELCC was constructed and operated with 7.6 bar natural xenon gas to evaluate the performance of the detector at around the Q value of $^{136}$Xe $0\nu\beta\beta$. The obtained FWHM energy resolution is (0.73 $\pm$ 0.11) % at 1836 keV. This corresponds to (0.60 $\pm$ 0.03) % to (0.70 $\pm$ 0.21) % of energy resolution at the Q value of $^{136}Xe$ $0\nu\beta\beta$. This result shows the scalability of the AXEL detector with ELCC while maintaining high energy resolution. Factors determining the energy resolution were quantitatively evaluated and the result indicates further improvement is feasible. Reconstructed track images show distinctive structures at the endpoint of electron tracks, which will be an important feature to distinguish $0\nu\beta\beta$ signals from gamma-ray backgrounds.
Comment: 33 pages, 24 figures, preprint accepted by PTEP
Document Type: Working Paper
DOI: 10.1093/ptep/ptad146
Access URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2310.19714
Accession Number: edsarx.2310.19714
Database: arXiv
More Details
DOI:10.1093/ptep/ptad146