Initial results of NEXT-DEMO, a large-scale prototype of the NEXT-100 experiment
Abstract
NEXT-DEMO is a large-scale prototype of the NEXT-100 detector, an electroluminescent time projection chamber that will search for the neutrinoless double beta decay of Xe-136 using 100 to 150 kg of enriched xenon gas. NEXT-DEMO was built to prove the expected performance of NEXT-100, namely, energy resolution better than 1% FWHM at 2.5 MeV and event topological reconstruction. In this paper we describe the prototype and its initial results. A resolution of 1.75% FWHM at 511 keV (which extrapolates to 0.8% FWHM at 2.5 MeV) was obtained at 10 bar pressure using a gamma-ray calibration source. Also, a basic study of the event topology along the longitudinal coordinate is presented, proving that it is possible to identify the distinct dE/dx of electron tracks in high-pressure xenon using an electroluminescence TPC.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1211.4838,
title = {Initial results of NEXT-DEMO, a large-scale prototype of the NEXT-100 experiment},
author = {NEXT Collaboration and V. Álvarez and F. I. G. M. Borges and S. Cárcel and J. Castel and S. Cebrián and A. Cervera and C. A. N. Conde and T. Dafni and T. H. V. T. Dias and J. Díaz and M. Egorov and R. Esteve and P. Evtoukhovitch and L. M. P. Fernandes and P. Ferrario and A. L. Ferreira and E. D. C. Freitas and V. M. Gehman and A. Gil and A. Goldschmidt and H. Gómez and J. J. Gómez-Cadenas and D. González-Díaz and R. M. Gutiérrez and J. Hauptman and J. A. Hernando Morata and D. C. Herrera and F. J. Iguaz and I. G. Irastorza and M. A. Jinete and L. Labarga and A. Laing and I. Liubarsky and J. A. M. Lopes and D. Lorca and M. Losada and G. Luzón and A. Marí and J. Martín-Albo and A. Martínez and T. Miller and A. Moiseenko and F. Monrabal and C. M. B. Monteiro and F. J. Mora and L. M. Moutinho and J. Muñoz Vidal and H. Natal da Luz and G. Navarro and M. Nebot-Guinot and D. Nygren and C. A. B. Oliveira and R. Palma and J. Pérez and J. L. Pérez Aparicio and J. Renner and L. Ripoll and A. Rodríguez and J. Rodríguez and F. P. Santos and J. M. F. dos Santos and L. Segui and L. Serra and D. Shuman and A. Simón and C. Sofka and M. Sorel and J. F. Toledo and A. Tomás and J. Torrent and Z. Tsamalaidze and D. Vázquez and J. F. C. A. Veloso and J. A. Villar and R. Webb and J. T White and N. Yahlali},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1211.4838},
year = {2013}
}
Comments
23 pages, 22 figures. Version accepted for publication by the Journal of Instrumentation (JINST)