Measurement of the scintillation and ionization response of liquid xenon at MeV energies in the EXO-200 experiment

Anton G, Badhrees I, Barbeau PS, Beck D, Belov V, Bhatta T, Breidenbach M, Brunner T, Cao GF, Cen WR, Chambers C, Cleveland B, Coon M, Craycraft A, Daniels T, Darroch L, Daugherty SJ, Davis J, Delaquis S, Mesrobian-Kabakian AD, Devoe R, Dilling J, Dolgolenko A, Dolinski MJ, Echevers J, Fairbank W, Fairbank D, Farine J, Feyzbakhsh S, Fierlinger P, Fudenberg D, Gautam P, Gornea R, Gratta G, Hall C, Hansen E, Hößl J, Hufschmidt P, Hughes M, Iverson A, Jamil A, Jessiman C, Jewell MJ, Johnson A, Karelin A, Kaufman LJ, Koffas T, Krucken R, Kuchenkov A, Kumar KS, Lan Y, Larson A, Lenardo BG, Leonard DS, Li GS, Li S, Li Z, Licciardi C, Lin YH, Maclellan R, Mcelroy T, Michel T, Mong B, Moore DC, Murray K, Neilson R, Njoya O, Nusair O, Odian A, Ostrovskiy I, Piepke A, Pocar A, Retiere F, Robinson AL, Rowson PC, Runge J, Schmidt S, Sinclair D, Soma AK, Stekhanov V, Tarka M, Todd J, Tolba T, Tosi D, Totev T, Veenstra B, Veeraraghavan V, Vuilleumier JL, Wagenpfeil M, Watkins J, Weber M, Wen LJ, Wichoski U, Wrede G, Wu SX, Xia Q, Yahne DR, Yang L, Yen YR, Zeldovich OY, Ziegler T (2020)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2020

Journal

Book Volume: 101

Journal Issue: 6

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevC.101.065501

Abstract

Liquid xenon (LXe) is employed in a number of current and future detectors for rare event searches. We use the EXO-200 experimental data to measure the absolute scintillation and ionization yields generated by gamma interactions from Th-228 (2615 keV), Ra-226 (1764 keV), and Co-60 (1332 keV and 1173 keV) calibration sources, over a range of electric fields. The W value that defines the recombination-independent energy scale is measured to be 11.5 +/- 0.5 (syst.) +/- 0.1 (stat.) eV. These data are also used to measure the recombination fluctuations in the number of electrons and photons produced by the calibration sources at the MeV scale, which deviate from extrapolations of lower-energy data. Additionally, a semiempirical model for the energy resolution of the detector is developed, which is used to constrain the recombination efficiency, i.e., the fraction of recombined electrons that result in the emission of a detectable photon. Detailed measurements of the absolute charge and light yields for MeV-scale electron recoils are important for predicting the performance of future neutrinoless double beta-decay detectors.

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Involved external institutions

Colorado State University United States (USA) (US) University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) United States (USA) (US) Yale University United States (USA) (US) Laurentian University Canada (CA) Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) / 中国科学院高能物理研究所 China (CN) Stanford National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) United States (USA) (US) Stanford University United States (USA) (US) Technische Universität München (TUM) Germany (DE) National Research Centre "Kurchatov Institute" / Hациональный исследовательский центр "Курчатовский Институт" Russian Federation (RU) Triumf Canada (CA) Carleton University Canada (CA) Duke University United States (USA) (US) University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) United States (USA) (US) McGill University Canada (CA) Drexel University United States (USA) (US) State University of New York at Albany (UNY Albany / UAlbany) United States (USA) (US) University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass) United States (USA) (US) Universität Bern Switzerland (CH) Institute for Basic Science Korea, Republic of (KR) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign United States (USA) (US) University of Maryland United States (USA) (US) University of South Dakota United States (USA) (US) Indiana University United States (USA) (US)

How to cite

APA:

Anton, G., Badhrees, I., Barbeau, P.S., Beck, D., Belov, V., Bhatta, T.,... Ziegler, T. (2020). Measurement of the scintillation and ionization response of liquid xenon at MeV energies in the EXO-200 experiment. Physical Review C - Nuclear Physics, 101(6). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.101.065501

MLA:

Anton, Gisela, et al. "Measurement of the scintillation and ionization response of liquid xenon at MeV energies in the EXO-200 experiment." Physical Review C - Nuclear Physics 101.6 (2020).

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