Measurement of the ionization yield of nuclear recoils in liquid argon using a two-phase detector with electroluminescence gap

Abstract

A: A measurement of ionization yields in noble-gas liquids is relevant to the energy calibration of nuclear recoil detectors for dark matter search and coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering experiments. In this work we further study the ionization yield of nuclear recoils in liquid Ar, using a two-phase detector with an electroluminescence gap and DD neutron generator. The ionization yields of nuclear recoils in liquid Ar were measured at 233 keV and electric fields of 0.56 and 0.62 kV/cm; their values amounted to 5.9 ± 0.8 and 7.4 ± 1 e − /keV, respectively. The characteristic dependences of the ionization yield on energy and electric field were determined, while comparing the results obtained to those at lower energies and higher fields.

Electron transport and electric field simulations in two-phase detectors with THGEM electrodes

“…The generalized version of the two-phase detector with EL gap used in our current studies [3,4,6,9] is shown in Fig. 1.…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, no one has simulated THGEM performance in liquid argon thus far; it has been done for the first time in the present work. Figure 1: Generalized version of the two-phase detector with EL gap used in [3,4,6,9] (not to scale). The 4 MΩ resistance defining the voltage across THGEM0 is referred to as R T HGEM0 .…”

“…Two-phase detectors with electroluminescence (EL) gap, based on Ar and Xe, are relevant to experiments for direct search of dark matter particles [1,2]. Several versions of such detectors were developed in our laboratory for the study of EL mechanism in pure argon [3] and argon doped with nitrogen [4,5], for SiPM-matrix readout of two-phase detectors, directly [6] or using combined THGEM/SiPM-matrix multipliers [6,7,8], and for the measurements of ionization yields in liquid argon [9]. One of the main features of two-phase detectors developed in our laboratory is the extensive use of THGEMs (Thick Gas Electron Multipliers [10]).…”

Measurement of the Angular Distribution of Wavelength-Shifted Light Emitted by TPB

“…Noble liquid (NL) radiation detectors are a widely used tool in modern particle physics experiment. These detectors enable a variety of research programs ranging from neutrino physics [1,2] and dark matter searches [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] to other rare-event measurements [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. In recent years, significant effort has been committed to exploring how large-scale NL detectors can answer pressing questions in these fields.…”

Characterization of a 109Cd γ-Ray Source for the Two-Phase Argon Detector

“…The main purpose of this work is to provide reference data on the emission spectrum of a 109 Cd gamma-ray source. Such a radioactive source is used to calibrate the energy scale of a two-phase argon detector, which is being developed in our laboratory for dark matter search and low-energy neutrino experiments [1][2][3][4][5][6][7].…”