A gaseous-helium cooling system for silicon detectors in the Nab experiment
Instrumentation and Detectors
2026-01-09 v1 Nuclear Experiment
Abstract
The Nab experiment aims to extract the neutron beta decay correlation coefficients 'a' and 'b'. This will be accomplished using a 7 m tall electromagnetic spectrometer which measures electron energies and proton momenta. Detection of electrons and protons resulting from neutron beta decay will be carried out using large-area, thick, highly-segmented, single-crystal silicon detectors. These detectors and accompanying electronics will be cooled by a recirculating, gaseous helium cooling system to below 150 K with +/- 0.5 K stability. We will motivate the need for detector cooling in the Nab experiment and discuss design and performance of this cooling system.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2601.05115,
title = {A gaseous-helium cooling system for silicon detectors in the Nab experiment},
author = {Love Richburg and Noah Birge and Nadia Fomin and Grant Riley and Josh Pierce and John Ramsey and Wolfgang Schreyer and Seppo Penttila and Isaiah Wallace and Di'Arra Mostella and Aaron Jezghani and Alexander Saunders and Americo Salas Bacci and Ariella Atencio and August Mendelsohn and Austin Nelsen and Bryan Zeck and Christopher Crawford and Corey Gilbert and David Mathews and Deion Fellers and Duncan Fuehne and Erick Smith and Francisco Gonzalez and Glenn Randall and Himal Acharya and Huangxing Li and Hunter Presley and Jackie Mirabal and Jason Fry and Jin Ha Choi and Jordan O'Kronley and Josh Hamblen and Leah Broussard and Mark Makela and Nick Macsai and Pat McGaughey and Rebecca Godri and Ricardo Alarcon and Russell Mammei and Sean Hollander and Skylar Clymer and Zachary Garman},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.05115},
year = {2026}
}