NEXT Collaboration(Cebrian, S. et al), Alvarez, V., Carcel, S., Cervera-Villanueva, A., Diaz, J., Ferrario, P., et al. (2015). Accurate gamma and MeV-electron track reconstruction with an ultra-low diffusion Xenon/TMA TPC at 10 atm. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 804, 8–24.
Abstract: We report the performance of a 10 atm Xenon/trimethylamine time projection chamber (TPC) for the detection of X-rays (30 keV) and gamma-rays (0.511-1.275 MeV) in conjunction with the accurate tracking of the associated electrons. When operated at such a high pressure and in similar to 1%-admixtures, trimethylamine (TMA) endows Xenon with an extremely low electron diffusion (1.3 +/- 0.13 mm-sigma (longitudinal), 0.95 +/- 0.20 mm-sigma (transverse) along 1 m drift) besides forming a convenient Penning-Fluorescent' mixture. The TPC, that houses 1.1 kg of gas in its fiducial volume, operated continuously for 100 live-days in charge amplification mode. The readout was performed through the recently introduced microbulk Micromegas technology and the AFTER chip, providing a 3D voxelization of 8 mm x 8 mm x 1.2 mm for approximately 10 cm/MeV-long electron tracks. Resolution in energy (epsilon) at full width half maximum (R) inside the fiducial volume ranged from R = 14.6% (30 keV) to R = 4.6% (1.275 MeV). This work was developed as part of the R&D program of the NEXT collaboration for future detector upgrades in the search of the neutrino-less double beta decay (beta beta 0 nu) in Xe-136, specifically those based on novel gas mixtures. Therefore we ultimately focus on the calorimetric and topological properties of the reconstructed MeV-electron tracks. In particular, the obtained energy resolution has been decomposed in its various contributions and improvements towards achieving the R =1.4%root MeV/epsilon levels obtained in small sensors are discussed.
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Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., Benlloch-Rodriguez, J. M., & Ferrario, P. (2016). Application of scintillating properties of liquid xenon and silicon photomultiplier technology to medical imaging. Spectroc. Acta Pt. B, 118, 6–13.
Abstract: We describe a new positron emission time-of-flight apparatus using liquid xenon. The detector is based in a liquid xenon scintillating cell. The cell shape and dimensions can be optimized depending on the intended application. In its simplest form, the liquid xenon scintillating cell is a box in which two faces are covered by silicon photomultipliers and the others by a reflecting material such as Teflon. It is a compact, homogenous and highly efficient detector which shares many of the desirable properties of monolithic crystals, with the added advantage of high yield and fast scintillation offered by liquid xenon. Our initial studies suggest that good energy and spatial resolution comparable with that achieved by lutetium oxyorthosilicate crystals can be obtained with a detector based in liquid xenon scintillating cells. In addition, the system can potentially achieve an excellent coincidence resolving time of better than 100 ps.
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Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., Benlloch-Rodriguez, J. M., Ferrario, P., Monrabal, F., Rodriguez, J., & Toledo, J. F. (2016). Investigation of the coincidence resolving time performance of a PET scanner based on liquid xenon: a Monte Carlo study. J. Instrum., 11, P09011–18pp.
Abstract: The measurement of the time of flight of the two 511 keV gammas recorded in coincidence in a PET scanner provides an effective way of reducing the random background and therefore increases the scanner sensitivity, provided that the coincidence resolving time (CRT) of the gammas is sufficiently good. The best commercial PET-TOF system today (based in LYSO crystals and digital SiPMs), is the VEREOS of Philips, boasting a CRT of 316 ps (FWHM). In this paper we present a Monte Carlo investigation of the CRT performance of a PET scanner exploiting the scintillating properties of liquid xenon. We find that an excellent CRT of 70 ps (depending on the PDE of the sensor) can be obtained if the scanner is instrumented with silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) sensitive to the ultraviolet light emitted by xenon. Alternatively, a CRT of 160 ps can be obtained instrumenting the scanner with (much cheaper) blue-sensitive SiPMs coated with a suitable wavelength shifter. These results show the excellent time of flight capabilities of a PET device based in liquid xenon.
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NEXT Collaboration(Renner, J. et al), Benlloch-Rodriguez, J., Botas, A., Ferrario, P., Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., Alvarez, V., et al. (2017). Background rejection in NEXT using deep neural networks. J. Instrum., 12, T01004–21pp.
Abstract: We investigate the potential of using deep learning techniques to reject background events in searches for neutrinoless double beta decay with high pressure xenon time projection chambers capable of detailed track reconstruction. The differences in the topological signatures of background and signal events can be learned by deep neural networks via training over many thousands of events. These networks can then be used to classify further events as signal or background, providing an additional background rejection factor at an acceptable loss of efficiency. The networks trained in this study performed better than previous methods developed based on the use of the same topological signatures by a factor of 1.2 to 1.6, and there is potential for further improvement.
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NEXT Collaboration(Henriques, C. A. O. et al), Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., Alvarez, V., Benlloch-Rodriguez, J., Botas, A., Carcel, S., et al. (2017). Secondary scintillation yield of xenon with sub-percent levels of CO2 additive for rare-event detection. Phys. Lett. B, 773, 663–671.
Abstract: Xe-CO2 mixtures are important alternatives to pure xenon in Time Projection Chambers (TPC) based on secondary scintillation (electroluminescence) signal amplification with applications in the important field of rare event detection such as directional dark matter, double electron capture and double beta decay detection. The addition of CO2 to pure xenon at the level of 0.05-0.1% can reduce significantly the scale of electron diffusion from 10 mm/root m to 2.5 mm/root m, with high impact on the discrimination of the events through pattern recognition of the topology of primary ionization trails. We have measured the electroluminescence (EL) yield of Xe-CO2 mixtures, with sub-percent CO2 concentrations. We demonstrate that the EL production is still high in these mixtures, 70% and 35% relative to that produced in pure xenon, for CO2 concentrations around 0.05% and 0.1%, respectively. The contribution of the statistical fluctuations in EL production to the energy resolution increases with increasing CO2 concentration, being smaller than the contribution of the Fano factor for concentrations below 0.1% CO2.
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