Increasing the efficiency of photon collection in LArTPCs: the ARAPUCA light trap

TL;DR

The paper discusses the development and testing of the ARAPUCA light trap device, which significantly improves photon collection efficiency in liquid argon time projection chambers for neutrino detection.

Contribution

It introduces the ARAPUCA device, combining dichroic filters and wavelength shifters, as an innovative solution to enhance scintillation light collection in LArTPCs.

Findings

ARAPUCA achieves high light collection efficiency in laboratory tests.

The device is suitable for integration into large neutrino detectors like protoDUNE.

Laboratory results demonstrate improved photon detection performance.

Abstract

The Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LArTPCs) are a choice for the next generation of large neutrino detectors due to their optimal performance in particle tracking and calorimetry. The detection of Argon scintillation light plays a crucial role in the event reconstruction as well as the time reference for non-beam physics such as supernovae neutrino detection and baryon number violation studies. In this contribution, we present the current R&D work on the ARAPUCA (Argon R&D Advanced Program at UNICAMP), a light trap device to enhance Ar scintillation light collection and thus the overall performance of LArTPCs. The ARAPUCA working principle is based on a suitable combination of dichroic filters and wavelength shifters to achieve a high efficiency in light collection. We discuss the operational principles, the last results of laboratory tests and the application of the ARAPUCA as the alternative photon detection system in the protoDUNE detector.