A large scale purification system for a liquid argon time projection chamber

AbstractLiquid argon is being employed as a detector medium in neutrino physics and Dark Matter searches. A recent push to expand the applications of scintillation light in Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber neutrino detectors has necessitated the development of advanced methods of simulating this light. The presently available methods tend to be prohibitively slow or imprecise due to the combination of detector size and the amount of energy deposited by neutrino beam interactions. In this work we present a semi-analytical model to predict the quantity of argon scintillation light observed by a light detector with a precision better than $$10\%$$ 10 % , based only on the relative positions between the scintillation and light detector. We also provide a method to predict the distribution of arrival times of these photons accounting for propagation effects. Additionally, we present an equivalent model to predict the number of photons and their arrival times in the case of a wavelength-shifting, highly-reflective layer being present on the detector cathode. Our proposed method can be used to simulate light propagation in large-scale liquid argon detectors such as DUNE or SBND, and could also be applied to other detector mediums such as liquid xenon or xenon-doped liquid argon.

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Optical Readout of the ARIADNE LArTPC Using a Timepix3-Based Camera

Instruments ◽

10.3390/instruments4040035 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (4) ◽

pp. 35

Author(s):

Adam Lowe ◽

Krishanu Majumdar ◽

Konstantinos Mavrokoridis ◽

Barney Philippou ◽

Adam Roberts ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Liquid Argon ◽

Energy Calibration ◽

Dual Phase ◽

Optical Readout ◽

Event Reconstruction ◽

Phase Liquid ◽

Preliminary Study ◽

Time Projection ◽

Good Agreement

The ARIADNE Experiment, utilising a 1-ton dual-phase Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC), aims to develop and mature optical readout technology for large scale LAr detectors. This paper describes the characterisation, using cosmic muons, of a Timepix3-based camera mounted on the ARIADNE detector. The raw data from the camera are natively 3D and zero suppressed, allowing for straightforward event reconstruction, and a gallery of reconstructed LAr interaction events is presented. Taking advantage of the 1.6 ns time resolution of the readout, the drift velocity of the ionised electrons in LAr was determined to be 1.608 ± 0.005 mm/μs at 0.54 kV/cm. Energy calibration and resolution were determined using through-going muons. The energy resolution was found to be approximately 11% for the presented dataset. A preliminary study of the energy deposition (dEdX) as a function of distance has also been performed for two stopping muon events, and comparison to GEANT4 simulation shows good agreement. The results presented demonstrate the capabilities of this technology, and its application is discussed in the context of the future kiloton-scale dual-phase LAr detectors that will be used in the DUNE programme.

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