The CAST Time Projection Chamber

Abstract

One of the three X-ray detectors of the CAST experiment searching for solar axions is a Time Projection Chamber (TPC) with a multi-wire proportional counter (MWPC) as a readout structure. Its design has been optimized to provide high sensitivity to the detection of the low intensity X-ray signal expected in the CAST experiment. A low hardware threshold of 0.8 keV is safely set during normal data taking periods, and the overall efficiency for the detection of photons coming from conversion of solar axions is 62 %. Shielding has been installed around the detector, lowering the background level to 4.10 x 10^-5 counts/cm^2/s/keV between 1 and 10 keV. During phase I of the CAST experiment the TPC has provided robust and stable operation, thus contributing with a competitive result to the overall CAST limit on axion-photon coupling and mass.

19 pages, 11 figures and images, submitted to New Journal of Physics

References in corpus (4)

• First results from the CERN Axion Solar Telescope (CAST)
• An improved limit on the axion-photon coupling from the CAST experiment
• The Micromegas detector of the CAST experiment
• The X-ray Telescope of CAST

Cited by in corpus (20)

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• The Micromegas detector of the CAST experiment
• The X-ray Telescope of CAST
• Search for 14.4 keV solar axions emitted in the M1-transition of 57Fe nuclei with CAST
• Axion Searches in the Past, at Present, and in the Near Future
• Axion Astrophysics
• Search for solar axion emission from 7Li and D(p,gamma)3He nuclear decays with the CAST gamma-ray calorimeter
• Low Energy Electron and Nuclear Recoil Thresholds in the DRIFT-II Negative Ion TPC for Dark Matter Searches
• Solar axion search with the CAST experiment
• Background studies and shielding effects for the TPC detector of the CAST experiment
• Background study for the pn-CCD detector of CERN Axion Solar Telescope
• Physics at Underground Laboratories: Direct Detection of Dark Matter
• Axions at the meV Crossroads: Theory, Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Experiments
• Solar Axion search with Micromegas detectors in the CAST Experiment with ${}^3$He as buffer gas