Near-Intrinsic Energy Resolution for 30 to 662 keV Gamma Rays in a High Pressure Xenon Electroluminescent TPC

Abstract

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 projection chamber (TPC) that was built at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It is a prototype of the planned NEXT-100 ${}^{136}$Xe neutrino-less double beta decay ($0\nu \beta \beta$) experiment with the main objectives of demonstrating near-intrinsic energy resolution at energies up to 662 keV and of optimizing the NEXT-100 detector design and operating parameters. Energy resolutions of $\sim$1% FWHM for 662 keV gamma rays were obtained at 10 and 15 atm and $\sim$5% FWHM for 30 keV fluorescence xenon X-rays. These results demonstrate that 0.5% FWHM resolutions for the 2,459 keV hypothetical neutrino-less double beta decay peak are realizable. This energy resolution is a factor 7 to 20 better than that of the current leading $0\nu \beta \beta$ experiments using liquid xenon and thus represents a significant advancement. We present also first results from a track imaging system consisting of 64 silicon photo-multipliers recently installed in NEXT-DBDM that, along with the excellent energy resolution, demonstrates the key functionalities required for the NEXT-100 $0\nu \beta \beta$ search.

51 pages, 26 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Search for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay in ${}^{136}$Xe with EXO-200
• The Little Review on Leptogenesis

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Application and performance of an ML-EM algorithm in NEXT
• Status and prospects of the NEXT experiment for neutrinoless double beta decay searches
• Single Molecule Fluorescence Imaging as a Technique for Barium Tagging in Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay