TY  - JOUR
AU  - NEXT Collaboration (Alvarez, V. et al
AU  - Carcel, S.
AU  - Cervera-Villanueva, A.
AU  - Diaz, J.
AU  - Ferrario, P.
AU  - Gil, A.
AU  - Gomez-Cadenas, J. J.
AU  - Liubarsky, I.
AU  - Lorca, D.
AU  - Martin-Albo, J.
AU  - Martinez, A.
AU  - Monrabal, F.
AU  - Muñoz Vidal, J.
AU  - Nebot-Guinot, M.
AU  - Rodriguez, J.
AU  - Serra, L.
AU  - Simon, A.
AU  - Sorel, M.
AU  - Yahlali, N.
PY  - 2013
DA  - 2013//
TI  - Near-intrinsic energy resolution for 30-662 keV gamma rays in a high pressure xenon electroluminescent TPC
T2  - Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A
JO  - Nuclear Instruments & Methods in Physics Research A
SP  - 101
EP  - 114
VL  - 708
PB  - Elsevier Science Bv
KW  - Xenon
KW  - Energy resolution
KW  - High-pressure
KW  - TPC
KW  - Electroluminescence
KW  - Neutrinoless double beta decay
AB  - 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.
SN  - 0168-9002
UR  - http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.4474
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2012.12.123
DO  - 10.1016/j.nima.2012.12.123
LA  - English
N1  - WOS:000316192300015
ID  - NEXTCollaborationAlvarez_etal2013
ER  -