Primary and secondary scintillation measurements in a xenon Gas Proportional Scintillation Counter

Abstract

NEXT is a new experiment to search for neutrinoless double beta decay using a 100 kg radio-pure high-pressure gaseous xenon TPC. The detector requires excellent energy resolution, which can be achieved in a Xe TPC with electroluminescence readout. Hamamatsu R8520-06SEL photomultipliers are good candidates for the scintillation readout. The performance of this photomultiplier, used as VUV photosensor in a gas proportional scintillation counter, was investigated. Initial results for the detection of primary and secondary scintillation produced as a result of the interaction of 5.9 keV X-rays in gaseous xenon, at room temperature and at pressures up to 3 bar, are presented. An energy resolution of 8.0% was obtained for secondary scintillation produced by 5.9 keV X-rays. No significant variation of the primary scintillation was observed for different pressures (1, 2 and 3 bar) and for electric fields up to 0.8 V cm-1 torr-1 in the drift region, demonstrating negligible recombination luminescence. A primary scintillation yield of 81 \pm 7 photons was obtained for 5.9 keV X-rays, corresponding to a mean energy of 72 \pm 6 eV to produce a primary scintillation photon in xenon.

arXiv comment16 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in JINST

References in corpus (2)

• First Results from the XENON10 Dark Matter Experiment at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory
• Constraints on inelastic dark matter from XENON10

Cited by in corpus (17)

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• Electroluminescence TPCs at the thermal diffusion limit
• Modelling the behaviour of microbulk Micromegas in Xenon/trimethylamine gas
• Suitability of high-pressure xenon as scintillator for gamma ray spectroscopy
• Near-Intrinsic Energy Resolution for 30 to 662 keV Gamma Rays in a High Pressure Xenon Electroluminescent TPC
• Characterization of the Hamamatsu S8664 Avalanche Photodiode for X-Ray and VUV-light detection
• Study of infrared scintillations in gaseous and liquid argon - Part II: light yield and possible applications
• A light readout system for gas TPCs
• High Pressure Gas Xenon TPCs for Double Beta Decay Searches
• In-situ calibration of a PMT inside a scintillation detector by means of primary scintillation detection