An apparatus to manipulate and identify individual Ba ions from bulk liquid Xe

Abstract

We describe a system to transport and identify barium ions produced in liquid xenon, as part of R&D towards the second phase of a double beta decay experiment, nEXO. The goal is to identify the Ba ion resulting from an extremely rare nuclear decay of the isotope ${}^{136}$Xe, hence providing a confirmation of the occurrence of the decay. This is achieved through Resonance Ionization Spectroscopy (RIS). In the test setup described here, Ba ions can be produced in liquid xenon or vacuum and collected on a clean substrate. This substrate is then removed to an analysis chamber under vacuum, where laser-induced thermal desorption and RIS are used with time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectroscopy for positive identification of the barium decay product.

12 pages, 13 figures

References in corpus (6)

• Double Beta Decay, Majorana Neutrinos, and Neutrino Mass
• Search for Majorana neutrinos with the first two years of EXO-200 data
• Limit on Neutrinoless ββ Decay of Xe-136 from the First Phase of KamLAND-Zen and Comparison with the Positive Claim in Ge-76
• The EXO-200 detector, part I: Detector design and construction
• Observation of single collisionally cooled trapped ions in a buffer gas
• A simple radionuclide-driven single-ion source

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Toward the discovery of matter creation with neutrinoless double-beta decay
• Sensitivity and discovery potential of the proposed nEXO experiment to neutrinoless double beta decay
• Measurements of the ion fraction and mobility of alpha and beta decay products in liquid xenon using EXO-200
• An RF-only ion-funnel for extraction from high-pressure gases
• Spectroscopy of Ba and Ba${}^{+}$ deposits in solid xenon for barium tagging in nEXO
• Search for neutrinoless double beta decay
• Design of a Multiple-Reflection Time-of-Flight Mass-Spectrometer for Barium-tagging
• Radio Frequency and DC High Voltage Breakdown of High Pressure Helium, Argon, and Xenon
• Characterization of a Spatially Resolved Multi-Element Laser Ablation Ion Source
• Single Molecule Fluorescence Imaging as a Technique for Barium Tagging in Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay
• 'Searching for a needle in a haystack;' A Ba-tagging approach for an upgraded nEXO experiment
• Ion manipulation from liquid Xe to vacuum: Ba-tagging for a nEXO upgrade and future $0\nu \beta \beta$ experiments
• Snowmass Instrumentation Frontier IF08 Topical Group Report: Noble Element Detectors