HADES Collaboration(Agakishiev, G. et al), Diaz, J., & Gil, A. (2010). Origin of the low-mass electron pair excess in light nucleus-nucleus collisions. Phys. Lett. B, 690(2), 118–122.
Abstract: We report measurements of electron pair production in elementary p + p and d + p reactions at 1.25 GeV/mu with the HADES spectrometer. For the first time, the electron pairs were reconstructed for n + p reactions by detecting the proton spectator from the deuteron breakup. We find that the yield of electron pairs with invariant mass Me+e- > 0.15 GeV/c(2) is about an order of magnitude larger in n + p reactions as compared to p + p. A comparison to model calculations demonstrates that the production mechanism is not sufficiently described yet. The electron pair spectra measured in C + C reactions are compatible with a superposition of elementary n + p and p + p collisions, leaving little room for additional electron pair sources in such light collision systems.
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Gil, A., Diaz, J., Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., Herrero, V., Rodriguez, J., Serra, L., et al. (2012). Front-end electronics for accurate energy measurement of double beta decays. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 695, 407–409.
Abstract: NEXT, a double beta decay experiment that will operate in Canfranc Underground Laboratory (Spain), aims at measuring the neutrinoless double-beta decay of the 136Xe isotope using a TPC filled with enriched Xenon gas at high pressure operated in electroluminescence mode. One technological challenge of the experiment is to achieve resolution better than 1% in the energy measurement using a plane of UV sensitive photomultipliers readout with appropriate custom-made front-end electronics. The front-end is designed to be sensitive to the single photo-electron to detect the weak primary scintillation light produced in the chamber, and also to be able to cope with the electroluminescence signal (several hundred times higher and with a duration of microseconds). For efficient primary scintillation detection and precise energy measurement of the electroluminescent signals the front-end electronics features low noise and adequate amplification. The signal shaping provided allows the digitization of the signals at a frequency as low as 40 MHz.
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NEXT Collaboration(Alvarez, V. et al), Carcel, S., Cervera-Villanueva, A., Diaz, J., Ferrario, P., Gil, A., et al. (2013). Near-intrinsic energy resolution for 30-662 keV gamma rays in a high pressure xenon electroluminescent TPC. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 708, 101–114.
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 Xe-136 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 similar to 1% FWHM for 662 keV gamma rays were obtained at 10 and 15 atm and similar to 5% FWHM for 30 keV fluorescence xenon X-rays. These results demonstrate that 0.5% FWHM resolutions for the 2459 keV hypothetical neutrino-less double beta decay peak are realizable. This energy resolution is a factor 7-20 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.
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HADES Collaboration(Agakishiev, G. et al), Diaz, J., & Gil, A. (2015). Study of the quasi-free np -> np pi(+)pi(-) reaction with a deuterium beam at 1.25 GeV/nucleon. Phys. Lett. B, 750, 184–193.
Abstract: The tagged quasi-free np -> np pi(+)pi(-) reaction has been studied experimentally with the High Acceptance Di-Electron Spectrometer (HADES) at GSI at a deuteron incident beam energy of 1.25 GeV/nucleon (root S similar to 2.42 GeV/c for the quasi-free collision). For the first time, differential distributions of solid statistics for pi(+)pi(-) production in np collisions have been collected in the region corresponding to the large transverse momenta of the secondary particles. The invariant mass and angular distributions for the np -> np pi(+)pi(-) reaction are compared with different models. This comparison confirms the dominance of the t-channel with Delta Delta contribution. It also validates the changes previously introduced in the Valencia model to describe two-pion production data in other isospin channels, although some deviations are observed, especially for the pi(+)pi(-) invariant mass spectrum. The extracted total cross section is also in much better agreement with this model. Our new measurement puts useful constraints for the existence of the conjectured dibaryon resonance at mass M similar to 2.38 GeV and with width Gamma similar to 70 MeV. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
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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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