Results from the NEXT prototypes

TL;DR

This paper reports on the latest results from the NEXT prototypes, demonstrating improved light collection, excellent energy resolution, and precise tracking capabilities crucial for neutrino-less double beta decay detection.

Contribution

It presents new experimental results from NEXT prototypes, including enhanced light collection, high energy resolution, and detailed tracking performance for the NEXT-100 detector.

Findings

Light collection improved by ~3x with TPB coating

Energy resolution of 1% FWHM achieved

Tracking error of 2.1 mm RMS demonstrated

Abstract

NEXT-100 is an electroluminescent high pressure Time Projection Chamber currently under construction. It will search for the neutrino-less double beta decay in 136Xe at the Canfranc Underground Laboratory. NEXT-100 aims to achieve nearly intrinsic energy resolution and to highly suppress background events by taking advantage of the unique properties of xenon in the gaseous phase as the detection medium. In order to prove the principle of operation and to study which are the best operational conditions, two prototypes were constructed: NEXT-DEMO and NEXT-DBDM. In this paper we present the latest results from both prototypes. We report the improvement in terms of light collection (?~3x?) achieved by coating the walls of NEXT-DEMO with tetraphenyl butadiene (TPB), the outstanding energy resolution of 1 % (Full Width Half Maximum) from NEXT-DBDM as well as the tracking capabilities of this prototype (2.1 mm RMS error for point-like depositions) achieved by using a square array of 8x8 SiPMs.