Doping liquid argon with xenon in ProtoDUNE Single-Phase: effects on scintillation light
Creators
- 1. CERN, European Org Nucl Res, CH-1211 Meyrin, Switzerland
- 2. Univ Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RH, England
- 3. Fermilab Natl Accelerator Lab, Batavia, IL 60510 USA
- 4. Univ Atlantico, Barranquilla, Atlantico, Colombia
- 5. Univ Tecnol Fed Parana, Curitiba, Parana, Brazil
- 6. Georgian Tech Univ, Tbilisi, Georgia
- 7. Brookhaven Natl Lab, Upton, NY 11973 USA
- 8. Univ Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TL, Avon, England
- 9. Univ Estadual Campinas, BR-13083970 Campinas, SP, Brazil
- 10. Univ Houston, Houston, TX 77204 USA
- 11. Lawrence Berkeley Natl Lab, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
- 12. Univ Savoie Mt Blanc, Lab Annecy Phys Particules, CNRS, LAPP,IN2P3, F-74000 Annecy, France
- 13. Univ Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627 USA
- 14. Univ Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309 USA
- 15. Kansas State Univ, Manhattan, KS 66506 USA
- 16. Augustana Univ, Sioux Falls, SD 57197 USA
- 17. CIEMAT, Ctr Invest Energet Medioambientales & Tecnol, E-28040 Madrid, Spain
Description
Doping of liquid argon TPCs (LArTPCs) with a small concentration of xenon is a technique for light-shifting and facilitates the detection of the liquid argon scintillation light. In this paper, we present the results of the first doping test ever performed in a kiloton-scale LArTPC. From February to May 2020, we carried out this special run in the single-phase DUNE Far Detector prototype (ProtoDUNE-SP) at CERN, featuring 720 t of total liquid argon mass with 410 t of fiducial mass. A 5.4 ppm nitrogen contamination was present during the xenon doping campaign. The goal of the run was to measure the light and charge response of the detector to the addition of xenon, up to a concentration of 18.8 ppm. The main purpose was to test the possibility for reduction of non-uniformities in light collection, caused by deployment of photon detectors only within the anode planes. Light collection was analysed as a function of the xenon concentration, by using the pre-existing photon detection system (PDS) of ProtoDUNE-SP and an additional smaller set-up installed specifically for this run. In this paper we first summarize our current understanding of the argon-xenon energy transfer process and the impact of the presence of nitrogen in argon with and without xenon dopant. We then describe the key elements of ProtoDUNE-SP and the injection method deployed. Two dedicated photon detectors were able to collect the light produced by xenon and the total light. The ratio of these components was measured to be about 0.65 as 18.8 ppm of xenon were injected. We performed studies of the collection efficiency as a function of the distance between tracks and light detectors, demonstrating enhanced uniformity of response for the anode-mounted PDS. We also show that xenon doping can substantially recover light losses due to contamination of the liquid argon by nitrogen.
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