Agaras, M. N. et al, & Fiorini, L. (2023). Laser calibration of the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter during LHC Run 2. J. Instrum., 18(6), P06023–35pp.
Abstract: This article reports the laser calibration of the hadronic Tile Calorimeter of the ATLAS experiment in the LHC Run 2 data campaign. The upgraded Laser II calibration system is described. The system was commissioned during the first LHC Long Shutdown, exhibiting a stability better than 0.8% for the laser light monitoring. The methods employed to derive the detector calibration factors with data from the laser calibration runs are also detailed. These allowed to correct for the response fluctuations of the 9852 photomultiplier tubes of the Tile Calorimeter with a total uncertainty of 0.5% plus a luminosity-dependent sub-dominant term. Finally, we report the regular monitoring and performance studies using laser events in both standalone runs and during proton collisions. These studies include channel timing and quality inspection, and photomultiplier linearity and response dependence on anode current.
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DUNE Collaboration(Abud, A. A. et al), Antonova, M., Barenboim, G., Cervera-Villanueva, A., De Romeri, V., Fernandez Menendez, P., et al. (2022). Design, construction and operation of the ProtoDUNE-SP Liquid Argon TPC. J. Instrum., 17(1), P01005–111pp.
Abstract: The ProtoDUNE-SP detector is a single-phase liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) that was constructed and operated in the CERN North Area at the end of the H4 beamline. This detector is a prototype for the first far detector module of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), which will be constructed at the Sandford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in Lead, South Dakota, U.S.A. The ProtoDUNE-SP detector incorporates full-size components as designed for DUNE and has an active volume of 7 x 6 x 7.2 m3. The H4 beam delivers incident particles with well-measured momenta and high-purity particle identification. ProtoDUNE-SP's successful operation between 2018 and 2020 demonstrates the effectiveness of the single-phase far detector design. This paper describes the design, construction, assembly and operation of the detector components.
Keywords: Noble liquid detectors (scintillation, ionization, double-phase); Photon detectors for UV; visible and IR photons (solid-state) (PIN diodes, APDs, Si-PMTs, G-APDs, CCDs, EBCCDs, EMCCDs, CMOS imagers, etc); Scintillators; scintillation and light emission processes (solid, gas and liquid scintillators); Time projection Chambers (TPC)
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T2K Collaboration(Abe, K. et al), Antonova, M., Cervera-Villanueva, A., Molina Bueno, L., & Novella, P. (2022). Scintillator ageing of the T2K near detectors fro 2010 to 2021. J. Instrum., 17(10), P10028–36pp.
Abstract: The T2K experiment widely uses plastic scintillator as a target for neutrino interactions and an active medium for the measurement of charged particles produced in neutrino interactions at its near detector complex. Over 10 years of operation the measured light yield recorded by the scintillator based subsystems has been observed to degrade by 0.9-2.2% per year. Extrapolation of the degradation rate through to 2040 indicates the recorded light yield should remain above the lower threshold used by the current reconstruction algorithms for all subsystems. This will allow the near detectors to continue contributing to important physics measurements during the T2K-II and Hyper-Kamiokande eras. Additionally, work to disentangle the degradation of the plastic scintillator and wavelength shifting fibres shows that the reduction in light yield can be attributed to the ageing of the plastic scintillator. The long component of the attenuation length of the wavelength shifting fibres was observed to degrade by 1.3-5.4% per year, while the short component of the attenuation length did not show any conclusive degradation.
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NEXT Collaboration, Carcel, S., Carrion, J. V., Felkai, R., Kekic, M., Lopez-March, N., et al. (2020). Mitigation of backgrounds from cosmogenic Xe-137 in xenon gas experiments using He-3 neutron capture. J. Phys. G, 47(7), 075001–17pp.
Abstract: Xe-136 is used as the target medium for many experiments searching for 0 nu beta beta. Despite underground operation, cosmic muons that reach the laboratory can produce spallation neutrons causing activation of detector materials. A potential background that is difficult to veto using muon tagging comes in the form of Xe-137 created by the capture of neutrons on Xe-136. This isotope decays via beta decay with a half-life of 3.8 min and a Q(beta) of similar to 4.16 MeV. This work proposes and explores the concept of adding a small percentage of He-3 to xenon as a means to capture thermal neutrons and reduce the number of activations in the detector volume. When using this technique we find the contamination from Xe-137 activation can be reduced to negligible levels in tonne and multi-tonne scale high pressure gas xenon neutrinoless double beta decay experiments running at any depth in an underground laboratory.
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Soderstrom, P. A. et al, Agramunt, J., Egea, J., Gadea, A., & Huyuk, T. (2019). Neutron detection and gamma-ray suppression using artificial neural networks with the liquid scintillators BC-501A and BC-537. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 916, 238–245.
Abstract: In this work we present a comparison between the two liquid scintillators BC-501A and BC-537 in terms of their performance regarding the pulse-shape discrimination between neutrons and gamma rays. Special emphasis is put on the application of artificial neural networks. The results show a systematically higher gamma-ray rejection ratio for BC-501A compared to BC-537 applying the commonly used charge comparison method. Using the artificial neural network approach the discrimination quality was improved to more than 95% rejection efficiency of gamma rays over the energy range 150 to 1000 keV for both BC-501A and BC-537. However, due to the larger light output of BC-501A compared to BC-537, neutrons could be identified in BC-501A using artificial neural networks down to a recoil proton energy of 800 keV compared to a recoil deuteron energy of 1200 keV for BC-537. We conclude that using artificial neural networks it is possible to obtain the same gamma-ray rejection quality from both BC-501A and BC-537 for neutrons above a low-energy threshold. This threshold is, however, lower for BC-501A, which is important for nuclear structure spectroscopy experiments of rare reaction channels where low-energy interactions dominates.
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