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At least 217 records · Page 12
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Design and implementation of the new scintillation light detection system of ICARUS T600

ICARUS T600 is the far detector of the Short Baseline Neutrino program at Fermilab (U.S.A.), which foresees three Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers along the Booster Neutrino Beam line to search for LSND-like sterile neutrino signal. The T600 detector underwent a significant overhauling process at CERN, introducing new technological developments while maintaining the already achieved performances. The realization of a new liquid argon scintillation light detection system is a primary task of the detector overhaul. As the detector will be subject to a huge flux of cosmic rays, the light detection system should allow the 3D reconstruction of events contributing to the identification of neutrino interactions in the beam spill gate. The design and implementation of the new scintillation light detection system of ICARUS T600 is described.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2022

Cryogenic electronics for noble liquid neutrino detectors

In this paper we present the general features of cryogenic (or “cold”) electronics for noble liquid time projection chambers, with design principles and details for neutrino physics, a brief history of the technology and details of recent research and development that is driving the design of the detectors under construction. Finally, some comments on future R&D envisioned and the impact of this work on other fields is described. “Cold” in the context of this work applies to CMOS devices operated at 77 K and above, at liquids temperatures of LAr (89 K), LKr (125 K) and LXe (165 K), with most of the tests performed in, or at LN 2 (77 K). Additionally, the paper is concentrated on the design of cold electronics for large liquid argon TPCs, those that have been successfully operated, MicroBooNE and ProtoDUNE, and those designed or under construction, such as SBND and DUNE first and second 10 kton modules. The high performance achieved with MicroBooNE and ProtoDUNE – a high signal-to-noise ratio combined with high stability of response – is mainly due to the integral approach to design and construction of sensing electrodes with cold readout electronics in a modular approach with the cryostat signal feed-throughs incorporating warm interface electronics into a Faraday cage with the cryostat. The integral concept is described in some detail in this paper.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2021

Overhaul and installation of the ICARUS-T600 liquid argon TPC electronics for the FNAL Short Baseline Neutrino program

The ICARUS T600 liquid argon (LAr) time projection chamber (TPC) underwent a major overhaul at CERN in 2016–2017 to prepare for the operation at FNAL in the Short Baseline Neutrino (SBN) program. This included a major upgrade of the photo-multiplier system and of the TPC wire read-out electronics. The full TPC wire read-out electronics together with the new wire biasing and interconnection scheme are described. The design of a new signal feed-through flange is also a fundamental piece of this overhaul whose major feature is the integration of all electronics components onto the signal flange. Initial functionality tests of the full TPC electronics chain installed in the T600 detector at FNAL are also described.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2022

The EXO-200 detector, part II: auxiliary systems

The EXO-200 experiment searched for neutrinoless double-beta decay of 136 Xe with a single-phase liquid xenon detector. It used an active mass of 110 kg of 80.6%-enriched liquid xenon in an ultra-low background time projection chamber with ionization and scintillation detection and readout. Here, this paper describes the design and performance of the various support systems necessary for detector operation, including cryogenics, xenon handling, and controls. Novel features of the system were driven by the need to protect the thin-walled detector chamber containing the liquid xenon, to achieve high chemical purity of the Xe, and to maintain thermal uniformity across the detector.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2025

DUNE Photon Detection System

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) aims to provide a broad physics program primarily addressed to probing CP violation in the neutrino sector and identifying the neutrino mass hierarchy. The search for proton decay, the observation of supernova neutrino bursts, and the investigation of solar neutrinos represent other additional goals of DUNE experiment, which can be enhanced by the use and the high performances of the Photon Detection System (PDS). Using the technology based on liquid argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC), the experiment plans to observe neutrino interactions inside detectors located 1300 km away from the Long Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), where the neutrinos are produced. The experiment consists of two main parts, respectively the far and near detectors. The far site will comprise four detector modules. The first module is constituted by a vertical drift single-phase LArTPC, while the second module provides a horizontal drift single-phase LArTPC. The configurations of the other modules are still under definition. Neutrino detection in LArTPCs is achieved by identifying the charge and light generated from its interactions with liquid argon. The wire planes of the instrumented anode and the PDS detect these signals, respectively. The PDS in the first two modules, detailed in the present document, uses a modified version of the so-called ARAPUCA technology, named X-ARAPUCA. This system consisting of a highly reflecting box with an entrance window made by dichroic filters and wavelength shifters, creates a trap to detect the VUV (128 nm) scintillation photons. The X-ARAPUCA of the first module is called Supercell, and it has dimensions of 488×100 mm 2 , while Megacell is the second module version, with an active area of 60×60 cm 2 . This latter configuration also represents a significant technological advancement. Since half of the modules are placed on the cathode at high voltage, they are powered and read out using innovative power-over-fiber (PoF) and signal-over-fiber (SoF) technologies. Meanwhile, the other half are installed in a membrane behind the field cage, with a total transparency of around 70%.

Neutrino detectors↗
DOE OSTI2021

nEXO: neutrinoless double beta decay search beyond 10 28 year half-life sensitivity

The nEXO neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay experiment is designed to use a time projection chamber and 5000 kg of isotopically enriched liquid xenon to search for the decay in 136 Xe. Progress in the detector design, paired with higher fidelity in its simulation and an advanced data analysis, based on the one used for the final results of EXO-200, produce a sensitivity prediction that exceeds the half-life of 10 28 years. Specifically, improvements have been made in the understanding of production of scintillation photons and charge as well as of their transport and reconstruction in the detector. The more detailed knowledge of the detector construction has been paired with more assays for trace radioactivity in different materials. In particular, the use of custom electroformed copper is now incorporated in the design, leading to a substantial reduction in backgrounds from the intrinsic radioactivity of detector materials. Furthermore, a number of assumptions from previous sensitivity projections have gained further support from interim work validating the nEXO experiment concept. Together these improvements and updates suggest that the nEXO experiment will reach a half-life sensitivity of 1.35 × 10 28 yr at 90% confidence level in 10 years of data taking, covering the parameter space associated with the inverted neutrino mass ordering, along with a significant portion of the parameter space for the normal ordering scenario, for almost all nuclear matrix elements. Furthermore, the effects of backgrounds deviating from the nominal values used for the projections are also illustrated, concluding that the nEXO design is robust against a number of imperfections of the model.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Measurement of charge and light yields for 127 Xe L -shell electron captures in liquid xenon

Dark matter searches using dual-phase xenon time-projection chambers (LXe-TPCs) rely on their ability to reject background electron recoils (ERs) while searching for signal-like nuclear recoils (NRs). ER response is typically calibrated using β -decay sources, such as tritium, but these calibrations do not characterize events accompanied by an atomic vacancy, as in solar neutrino scatters off inner-shell electrons. Such events lead to emission of x rays and Auger electrons, resulting in higher electron-ion recombination and thus a more NR-like response than inferred from β -decay calibration. We present a cross-calibration of tritium β -decays and Xe 127 electron-capture decays (which produce inner-shell vacancies) in a small-scale LXe-TPC and give the most precise measurements to date of light and charge yields for the Xe 127 L -shell electron-capture in liquid xenon. We observe a 6.9 σ ( 9.2 σ ) discrepancy in the L -shell capture response relative to tritium β decays, measured at a drift field of 363 ± 14 V / cm ( 258 ± 13 V / cm ), when compared to simulations tuned to reproduce the correct β -decay response. In dark matter searches, use of a background model that neglects this effect leads to overcoverage (higher limits) for background-only multi-kiloton-year exposures, but at a level much less than the 1 - σ experiment-to-experiment variation of the 90% C.L. upper limit on the interaction rate of a 50 GeV / c 2 dark matter particle.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2020

Study of space charge in the ICARUS T600 detector

The accumulation of positive ions, produced by ionizing particles crossing Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LAr-TPCs), may generate distortions of the electric drift field affecting the track reconstruction of the ionizing events. These effects could become relevant for large LAr-TPCs operating at surface or at shallow depth, where the detectors are exposed to a copious flux of cosmic rays. We report a detailed study of such possible field distortions in the ICARUS T600 LAr-TPC has been performed analyzing a sample of cosmic muon tracks recorded with one T600 module operated at surface in 2001. The maximum track distortion turns out to be of few mm in good agreement with the prediction by a numerical calculation. As a cross-check, the same analysis has been performed on a cosmic muon sample recorded during the ICARUS T600 run at the LNGS underground laboratory, where the cosmic ray flux was suppressed by a factor $\sim 10^6$ by 3400 m water equivalent shielding. No appreciable distortion has been observed, confirming that the effects measured on surface are actually due to ion space charge.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2023

Generative adversarial networks for scintillation signal simulation in EXO-200

Generative Adversarial Networks trained on samples of simulated or actual events have been proposed as a way of generating large simulated datasets at a reduced computational cost. In this work, a novel approach to perform the simulation of photodetector signals from the time projection chamber of the EXO-200 experiment is demonstrated. The method is based on a Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Network — a deep learning technique allowing for implicit non-parametric estimation of the population distribution for a given set of objects. Our network is trained on real calibration data using raw scintillation waveforms as input. We find that it is able to produce high-quality simulated waveforms an order of magnitude faster than the traditional simulation approach and, importantly, generalize from the training sample and discern salient high-level features of the data. In particular, the network correctly deduces position dependency of scintillation light response in the detector and correctly recognizes dead photodetector channels. Furthermore, the network output is then integrated into the EXO-200 analysis framework to show that the standard EXO-200 reconstruction routine processes the simulated waveforms to produce energy distributions comparable to that of real waveforms. Finally, the remaining discrepancies and potential ways to improve the approach further are highlighted.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Measurement of the atmospheric muon rate with the MicroBooNE Liquid Argon TPC

MicroBooNE is a near-surface liquid argon (LAr) time projection chamber (TPC) located at Fermilab. We measure muons originating from cosmic interactions in the atmosphere using both the charge collection and light readout detectors. The data is compared with the cosmic-ray simulation. Agreement is found between the observation, simulation and previous results. Furthermore, the angular resolution of the reconstructed muons inside the TPC is studied in simulation.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2021

Vertex-finding and reconstruction of contained two-track neutrino events in the MicroBooNE detector

In this work, we describe algorithms developed to isolate and accurately reconstruct two-track events that are contained within the MicroBooNE detector. This method is optimized to reconstruct two tracks of lengths longer than 5cm. This code has applications to searches for neutrino oscillations and measurements of cross sections using quasi-elastic-like charged current events. The algorithms we discuss will be applicable to all detectors running in Fermilab's Short Baseline Neutrino program (SBN), and to any future liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) experiment with beam energies ~ 1 GeV. The algorithms are publicly available on a GITHUB repository. This reconstruction offers a complementary and independent alternative to the Pandora reconstruction package currently in use in LArTPC experiments, and provides similar reconstruction performance for two-track events.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2024

Long-term temporal stability of the DarkSide-50 dark matter detector

The stability of a dark matter detector on the timescale of a few years is a key requirement due to the large exposure needed to achieve a competitive sensitivity. It is especially crucial to enable the detector to potentially detect any annual event rate modulation, an expected dark matter signature. Here, in this work, we present the performance history of the DarkSide-50 dual-phase argon time projection chamber over its almost three-year low-radioactivity argon run. In particular, we focus on the electroluminescence signal that enables sensitivity to sub-keV energy depositions. The stability of the electroluminescence yield is found to be better than 0.5%. Finally, we show the temporal evolution of the observed event rate around the sub-keV region being consistent to the background prediction.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2023

Constraining the Equation of State of Dense Neutron-rich Matter (Final Technical Report)

Using a new Time Projection Chamber (TPC), called the SpiRIT (SAMURAI pion Reconstruction Ion Tracker) constructed and funded by DOE office of science (award # DE-SC0004835), we performed two experiments with the SAMURAI spectrometer at RIKEN, Japan to study the equation of state of neutron rich matter. As a result of the project, the SpiRIT collaboration, an international collaboration consisting of groups from US, Japan, Korea, Poland, China and Germany, has been formed to pursue the science opportunities provided by the SpiRIT TPC. After the experiments, we developed the software to analyze the SpiRIT experiments and extract constraints of symmetry energy at supra-saturation densities. As a result 270 TB of data have been obtained. Over 10 technical papers on the TPC and 4 science papers on the nuclear equation of state have been published. A total of six (2 US, 1 Japanese and 1 Korean) PhD students have graduated based on their research on the EOS research using the SpiRIT data. In addition, the data also stimulated theorists on transport models to form the “Transport Model Evaluation Project” collaboration to improve the transport model to compare calculations with the data.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Construction of precision wire readout planes for the Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND)

The Short-Baseline Near Detector time projection chamber is unique in the design of its charge readout planes. These anode plane assemblies (APAs) have been fabricated and assembled to meet strict accuracy and precision requirements: wire spacing of 3 mm ± 0.5 mm and wire tension of 7 N ± 1 N across 3,964 wires per APA, and flatness within 0.5 mm over the 4 m × 2.5 m extent of each APA . Here, we describe the design, manufacture and assembly of these key detector components, with a focus on the quality assurance at each stage.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2023

Correction of the baseline fluctuations in the GEM-based ALICE TPC

To operate the ALICE Time Projection Chamber in continuous mode during the Run 3 and Run 4 data-taking periods of the Large Hadron Collider, the multi-wire proportional chamber-based readout was replaced with gas-electron multipliers. As expected, the detector performance is affected by the so-called common-mode effect, which leads to significant baseline fluctuations. A detailed study of the pulse shape with the new readout has revealed that it is also affected by ion tails. Since reconstruction and data compression are performed fully online, these effects must be corrected at the hardware level in the FPGA-based common readout units. The characteristics of the common-mode effect and of the ion tail, as well as the algorithms developed for their online correction, are described in this paper. The common-mode dependencies are studied using machine-learning techniques. Toy Monte Carlo simulations are performed to illustrate the importance of online corrections and to investigate the performance of the developed algorithms.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Reconstruction of interactions in the ProtoDUNE-SP detector with Pandora

The Pandora Software Development Kit and algorithm libraries provide pattern-recognition logic essential to the reconstruction of particle interactions in liquid argon time projection chamber detectors. Pandora is the primary event reconstruction software used at ProtoDUNE-SP, a prototype for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment far detector. ProtoDUNE-SP, located at CERN, is exposed to a charged-particle test beam. This paper gives an overview of the Pandora reconstruction algorithms and how they have been tailored for use at ProtoDUNE-SP. In complex events with numerous cosmic-ray and beam background particles, the simulated reconstruction and identification efficiency for triggered test-beam particles is above 80% for the majority of particle type and beam momentum combinations. Specifically, simulated 1 GeV/c charged pions and protons are correctly reconstructed and identified with efficiencies of 86.1$\pm 0.6$% and 84.1$\pm 0.6$%, respectively. The efficiencies measured for test-beam data are shown to be within 5% of those predicted by the simulation.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Constraints on Covariant Dark-Matter–Nucleon Effective Field Theory Interactions from the First Science Run of the LUX-ZEPLIN Experiment

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment is a dual-phase xenon time project chamber operating in the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota, USA. We report on the results of a relativistic extension to the nonrelativistic effective field theory (NREFT) from a 5.5 t fiducial mass and 60 live days of exposure. We present constraints on couplings from covariant interactions arising from the coupling of vector, axial currents, and electric dipole moments of the nucleon to the magnetic and electric dipole moments of the weakly interacting massive particle which cannot be described by recasting previous results described by an NREFT. Using a profile-likelihood ratio analysis, in an energy region between 0 keV nr to 270 keV nr , we report 90% confidence level exclusion limits on the coupling strength of five interactions in both the isoscalar and isovector bases. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

The track-length extension fitting algorithm for energy measurement of interacting particles in liquid argon TPCs and its performance with ProtoDUNE-SP data

This paper introduces a novel track-length extension fitting algorithm for measuring the kinetic energies of inelastically interacting particles in liquid argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs). The algorithm finds the most probable offset in track length for a track-like object by comparing the measured ionization density as a function of position with a theoretical prediction of the energy loss as a function of the energy, including models of electron recombination and detector response. The algorithm can be used to measure the energies of particles that interact before they stop, such as charged pions that are absorbed by argon nuclei. The algorithm's energy measurement resolutions and fractional biases are presented as functions of particle kinetic energy and number of track hits using samples of stopping secondary charged pions in data collected by the ProtoDUNE-SP detector, and also in a detailed simulation. Additional studies describe the impact of the dE/dx model on energy measurement performance. The method described in this paper to characterize the energy measurement performance can be repeated in any LArTPC experiment using stopping secondary charged pions.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗