Publications (57)
Operation and first results of the NEXT-DEMO prototype using a silicon photomultiplier tracking array
The NEXT Collaboration, V. Ãlvarez, F. I. G. Borges +75
NEXT-DEMO is a high-pressure xenon gas TPC which acts as a technological test-bed and demonstrator for the NEXT-100 neutrinoless double beta decay experiment. In its current config…
Radiogenic and Muon-Induced Backgrounds in the LUX Dark Matter Detector
D. S. Akerib, H. M. Araujo, X. Bai +77
The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) dark matter experiment aims to detect rare low-energy interactions from Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). The radiogenic backgrounds i…
Data Acquisition and Readout System for the LUX Dark Matter Experiment
D. S. Akerib, X. Bai, S. Bedikian +60
LUX is a two-phase (liquid/gas) xenon time projection chamber designed to detect nuclear recoils from interactions with dark matter particles. Signals from the LUX detector are pro…
Neutral Bremsstrahlung emission in xenon unveiled
C. A. O. Henriques, P. Amedo, J. M. R. Teixeira +90
We present evidence of non-excimer-based secondary scintillation in gaseous xenon, obtained using both the NEXT-White TPC and a dedicated setup. Detailed comparison with first-prin…
Secondary scintillation yield of Xenon with sub-percent levels of CO2 additive: efficiently reducing electron diffusion in HPXe optical TPCs for rare-event detection
C. A. O. Henriques, E. D. C. Freitas, C. D. R. Azevedo +67
We have measured the electroluminescence (EL) yield of Xe-CO2 mixtures, with sub-percent CO2 concentrations. We demonstrate that the EL production is still high in these mixtures,…
Initial results of NEXT-DEMO, a large-scale prototype of the NEXT-100 experiment
NEXT Collaboration, V. Ãlvarez, F. I. G. M. Borges +75
NEXT-DEMO is a large-scale prototype of the NEXT-100 detector, an electroluminescent time projection chamber that will search for the neutrinoless double beta decay of Xe-136 using…
Electroluminescence TPCs at the thermal diffusion limit
C. A. O. Henriques, C. M. B. Monteiro, D. González-DÃaz +78
The NEXT experiment aims at searching for the hypothetical neutrinoless double-beta decay from the Xe isotope using a high-purity xenon TPC. Efficient discrimination of t…
Radio-assay of Titanium samples for the LUX Experiment
D. S. Akerib, X. Bai, S. Bedikian +63
We report on the screening of samples of titanium metal for their radio-purity. The screening process described in this work led to the selection of materials used in the construct…
The Dynamics of Ions on Phased Radio-frequency Carpets in High Pressure Gases and Application for Barium Tagging in Xenon Gas Time Projection Chambers
NEXT Collaboration, B. J. P. Jones, A. Raymond +107
Radio-frequency (RF) carpets with ultra-fine pitches are examined for ion transport in gases at atmospheric pressures and above. We develop new analytic and computational methods f…
Accurate gamma and MeV-electron track reconstruction with an ultra-low diffusion Xenon/TMA TPC at 10 atmospheres
Diego Gonzalez-Diaz, V. Alvarez, F. I. G. Borges +80
We report the performance of a 10 atm Xenon/trimethylamine time projection chamber (TPC) for the detection of X-rays (30 keV) and gamma-rays (0.511-1.275 MeV) in conjunction with t…
Mitigation of Backgrounds from Cosmogenic Xe in Xenon Gas Experiments using He Neutron Capture
L. Rogers, B. J. P. Jones, A. Laing +89
\Xe{136} is used as the target medium for many experiments searching for \bbnonu. Despite underground operation, cosmic muons that reach the laboratory can produce spallation neutr…
The Next White (NEW) detector
F. Monrabal, J. J. Gómez-Cadenas, J. F. Toledo +72
Conceived to host 5 kg of xenon at a pressure of 15 bar in the fiducial volume, the NEXT- White (NEW) apparatus is currently the largest high pressure xenon gas TPC using electrolu…
Sensitivity of NEXT-100 to neutrinoless double beta decay
NEXT Collaboration, J. MartÃn-Albo, J. Muñoz Vidal +60
NEXT-100 is an electroluminescent high-pressure xenon gas time projection chamber that will search for the neutrinoless double beta () decay of Xe-136. The detector posse…
Status of the LUX Dark Matter Search
S. Fiorucci, D. S. Akerib, S. Bedikian +44
The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) dark matter search experiment is currently being deployed at the Homestake Laboratory in South Dakota. We will highlight the main elements of desi…
Electron Drift and Longitudinal Diffusion in High Pressure Xenon-Helium Gas Mixtures
A. D. McDonald, K. Woodruff, B. Al Atoum +83
We report new measurements of the drift velocity and longitudinal diffusion coefficients of electrons in pure xenon gas and in xenon-helium gas mixtures at 1-9 bar and electric fie…
Study of the loss of Xenon Scintillation in Xenon-Trimethylamine Mixtures
A. M. F. Trindade, J. Escada, A. F. V. Cortez +75
This work investigates the capability of TMA ((CH3)3N) molecules to shift the wavelength of Xe VUV emission (160-188 nm) to a longer, more manageable, wavelength (260-350 nm). Ligh…
Ba ion trapping by organic submonolayer: towards an ultra-low background neutrinoless double beta decay detector
P. Herrero-Gómez, J. P. Calupitan, M. Ilyn +112
If neutrinos are their own antiparticles, the otherwise-forbidden nuclear reaction known as neutrinoless double beta decay () can occur, with a characteristic lifetime whi…
Ionization and scintillation response of high-pressure xenon gas to alpha particles
NEXT Collaboration, V. Ãlvarez, F. I. G. M. Borges +70
High-pressure xenon gas is an attractive detection medium for a variety of applications in fundamental and applied physics. In this paper we study the ionization and scintillation…
Low-diffusion Xe-He gas mixtures for rare-event detection: Electroluminescence Yield
A. F. M. Fernandes, C. A. O. Henriques, R. D. P. Mano +88
High pressure xenon Time Projection Chambers (TPC) based on secondary scintillation (electroluminescence) signal amplification are being proposed for rare event detection such as d…
Radiopurity assessment of the energy readout for the NEXT double beta decay experiment
S. Cebrián, J. Pérez, I. Bandac +67
The Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon Time-Projection Chamber (NEXT) experiment intends to investigate the neutrinoless double beta decay of 136Xe, and therefore requires a severe s…
Collins and Sivers asymmetries for pions and kaons in muon-deuteron DIS
The COMPASS Collaboration, M. Alekseev, V. Yu. Alexakhin +238
The measurements of the Collins and Sivers asymmetries of identified hadrons produced in deep-inelastic scattering of 160 GeV/c muons on a transversely polarised 6LiD target at COM…
Measurement of the Xe two-neutrino double beta decay half-life via direct background subtraction in NEXT
NEXT Collaboration, P. Novella, M. Sorel +107
We report a measurement of the half-life of the Xe two-neutrino double beta decay performed with a novel direct background subtraction technique. The analysis relies on t…
Technical Results from the Surface Run of the LUX Dark Matter Experiment
LUX Collaboration, D. S. Akerib, X. Bai +64
We present the results of the three-month above-ground commissioning run of the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment at the Sanford Underground Research Facility located in Lea…
An Ultra-Low Background PMT for Liquid Xenon Detectors
D. S. Akerib, X. Bai, E. Bernard +64
Results are presented from radioactivity screening of two models of photomultiplier tubes designed for use in current and future liquid xenon experiments. The Hamamatsu 5.6 cm diam…
Helium-Xenon mixtures to improve topological signature in high pressure gas Xenon TPCs
R. Felkai, F. Monrabal, D. Gonzalez-DÃaz +72
Within the framework of xenon-based double beta decay experiments, we propose the possibility to improve the background rejection of an electroluminescent Time Projection Chamber (…
First results from the LUX dark matter experiment at the Sanford Underground Research Facility
LUX Collaboration, D. S. Akerib, H. M. Araujo +100
The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment, a dual-phase xenon time-projection chamber operating at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (Lead, South Dakota), was cooled and…
The MINOS Light Injection Calibration System
P. Adamson, J. Alner, B. Anderson +14
A description is given of the light-injection calibration system that has been developed for the MINOS long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment. The system is based upon pulse…
Calibration of the NEXT-White detector using decays
G. MartÃnez-Lema, J. A. Hernando Morata, B. Palmeiro +74
The NEXT-White (NEW) detector is currently the largest radio-pure high-pressure xenon gas time projection chamber with electroluminescent readout in the world. NEXT-White has been…
Josephson effects in MgB2 meta masked ion damage junctions
D. -J. Kang, N. H. Peng, R. Webb +8
Ion beam damage combined with nanoscale focused ion beam direct milling was used to create manufacturable SNS type Josephson junctions in 100 nm thick MgB with T of 38…
Sensitivity of the NEXT experiment to Xe-124 double electron capture
G. MartÃnez-Lema, M. MartÃnez-Vara, M. Sorel +88
Double electron capture by proton-rich nuclei is a second-order nuclear process analogous to double beta decay. Despite their similarities, the decay signature is quite different,…
An improved measurement of electron-ion recombination in high-pressure xenon gas
NEXT Collaboration, L. Serra, M. Sorel +64
We report on results obtained with the NEXT-DEMO prototype of the NEXT-100 high-pressure xenon gas time projection chamber (TPC), exposed to an alpha decay calibration source. Comp…
A Detailed Look at the First Results from the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) Dark Matter Experiment
M. Szydagis, D. S. Akerib, H. M. Araujo +77
LUX, the world's largest dual-phase xenon time-projection chamber, with a fiducial target mass of 118 kg and 10,091 kg-days of exposure thus far, is currently the most sensitive di…
After LUX: The LZ Program
D. C. Malling, D. S. Akerib, H. M. Araujo +71
The LZ program consists of two stages of direct dark matter searches using liquid Xe detectors. The first stage will be a 1.5-3 tonne detector, while the last stage will be a 20 to…
SiPMs coated with TPB : coating protocol and characterization for NEXT
V. Ãlvarez, J. Agramunt, M. Ball +91
Silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) are the photon detectors chosen for the tracking readout in NEXT, a neutrinoless ββ decay experiment which uses a high pressure gaseous xenon time…
The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) Experiment
D. S. Akerib, X. Bai, S. Bedikian +91
The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) collaboration has designed and constructed a dual-phase xenon detector, in order to conduct a search for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles(WIMP…
Near-Intrinsic Energy Resolution for 30 to 662 keV Gamma Rays in a High Pressure Xenon Electroluminescent TPC
NEXT Collaboration, V. Ãlvarez, F. I. G. M. Borges +75
We present the design, data and results from the NEXT prototype for Double Beta and Dark Matter (NEXT-DBDM) detector, a high-pressure gaseous natural xenon electroluminescent time…
POEMMA-Balloon with Radio: A multi-messenger, multi-detector balloon payload
J. Adams, J. Alfaro, D. Allard +123
A review of the current status of the field of Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Ray (UHECR) including a summary of remaining open questions was presented in the white paper "Ultra-High Ene…
LUXSim: A Component-Centric Approach to Low-Background Simulations
D. S. Akerib, X. Bai, S. Bedikian +60
Geant4 has been used throughout the nuclear and high-energy physics community to simulate energy depositions in various detectors and materials. These simulations have mostly been…
Radiogenic backgrounds in the NEXT double beta decay experiment
NEXT Collaboration, P. Novella, B. Palmeiro +88
Natural radioactivity represents one of the main backgrounds in the search for neutrinoless double beta decay. Within the NEXT physics program, the radioactivity-induced background…
Electron drift properties in high pressure gaseous xenon
NEXT Collaboration, A. Simón, R. Felkai +73
Gaseous time projection chambers (TPC) are a very attractive detector technology for particle tracking. Characterization of both drift velocity and diffusion is of great importance…
Sensitivity of a tonne-scale NEXT detector for neutrinoless double beta decay searches
NEXT Collaboration, C. Adams, V. Ãlvarez +96
The Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon TPC (NEXT) searches for the neutrinoless double-beta decay of Xe-136 using high-pressure xenon gas TPCs with electroluminescent amplification.…
Demonstration of background rejection using deep convolutional neural networks in the NEXT experiment
NEXT Collaboration, M. Kekic, C. Adams +88
Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are widely used state-of-the-art computer vision tools that are becoming increasingly popular in high energy physics. In this paper, we attempt…
The NEXT-100 experiment for neutrinoless double beta decay searches (Conceptual Design Report)
NEXT Collaboration, V. Ãlvarez, M. Ball +80
We propose an EASY (Electroluminescent ApparatuS of high Yield) and SOFT (Separated Optimized FuncTion) time-projection chamber for the NEXT experiment, that will search for neutri…
Energy calibration of the NEXT-White detector with 1% resolution near Q of Xe
J. Renner, G. DÃaz López, P. Ferrario +87
Excellent energy resolution is one of the primary advantages of electroluminescent high pressure xenon TPCs, and searches for rare physics events such as neutrinoless double-beta d…
Background rejection in NEXT using deep neural networks
NEXT Collaboration, J. Renner, A. Farbin +64
We investigate the potential of using deep learning techniques to reject background events in searches for neutrinoless double beta decay with high pressure xenon time projection c…
Demonstration of the event identification capabilities of the NEXT-White detector
NEXT Collaboration, P. Ferrario, J. M. Benlloch-RodrÃguez +88
In experiments searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay, the possibility of identifying the two emitted electrons is a powerful tool in rejecting background events and therefor…
Characterisation of NEXT-DEMO using xenon K X-rays
NEXT Collaboration, D. Lorca, J. MartÃn-Albo +63
The NEXT experiment aims to observe the neutrinoless double beta decay of Xe in a high pressure gas TPC using electroluminescence (EL) to amplify the signal from ionization…
Radio Frequency and DC High Voltage Breakdown of High Pressure Helium, Argon, and Xenon
K. Woodruff, J. Baeza-Rubio, D. Huerta +91
Motivated by the possibility of guiding daughter ions from double beta decay events to single-ion sensors for barium tagging, the NEXT collaboration is developing a program of R&D…
First proof of topological signature in the high pressure xenon gas TPC with electroluminescence amplification for the NEXT experiment
NEXT Collaboration, P. Ferrario, A. Laing +67
The NEXT experiment aims to observe the neutrinoless double beta decay of xenon in a high-pressure Xe136 gas TPC using electroluminescence (EL) to amplify the signal from ionizatio…
Demonstration of Single Barium Ion Sensitivity for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay using Single Molecule Fluorescence Imaging
A. D. McDonald, B. J. P. Jones, D. R. Nygren +71
A new method to tag the barium daughter in the double beta decay of Xe is reported. Using the technique of single molecule fluorescent imaging (SMFI), individual barium dic…
Measurement of radon-induced backgrounds in the NEXT double beta decay experiment
NEXT Collaboration, P. Novella, B. Palmeiro +79
The measurement of the internal Rn activity in the NEXT-White detector during the so-called Run-II period with Xe-depleted xenon is discussed in detail, together wi…
Boosting background suppression in the NEXT experiment through Richardson-Lucy deconvolution
A. Simón, Y. Ifergan, A. B. Redwine +100
Next-generation neutrinoless double beta decay experiments aim for half-life sensitivities of ~ yr, requiring suppressing backgrounds to <1 count/tonne/yr. For this, any e…
Dependence of polytetrafluoroethylene reflectance on thickness at visible and ultraviolet wavelengths in air
S. Ghosh, J. Haefner, J. MartÃn-Albo +88
Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is an excellent diffuse reflector widely used in light collection systems for particle physics experiments. However, the reflectance of PTFE is a fun…
Microscopic simulation of xenon-based optical TPCs in the presence of molecular additives
C. D. R. Azevedo, D. Gonzalez-Diaz, S. F. Biagi +67
We introduce a simulation framework for the transport of high and low energy electrons in xenon-based gaseous optical time projection chambers (OTPCs). The simulation relies on ele…
Application and performance of an ML-EM algorithm in NEXT
NEXT Collaboration, A. Simón, C. Lerche +67
The goal of the NEXT experiment is the observation of neutrinoless double beta decay in Xe using a gaseous xenon TPC with electroluminescent amplification and specialized p…
Initial results on energy resolution of the NEXT-White detector
J. Renner, P. Ferrario, G. MartÃnez-Lema +77
One of the major goals of the NEXT-White (NEW) detector is to demonstrate the energy resolution that an electroluminescent high pressure xenon TPC can achieve for high energy track…
The LUX Prototype Detector: Heat Exchanger Development
D. S. Akerib, X. Bai, S. Bedikian +47
The LUX (Large Underground Xenon) detector is a two-phase xenon Time Projection Chamber (TPC) designed to search for WIMP-nucleon dark matter interactions. As with all noble elemen…