Electron drift properties in high pressure gaseous xenon

TL;DR

This paper characterizes electron drift velocity and diffusion in high-pressure gaseous xenon TPCs, crucial for particle tracking, and compares measurements with simulations, aiding future detector development.

Contribution

It provides detailed measurements of drift properties in high-pressure xenon gas TPCs and validates these with Magboltz simulations, enhancing understanding of detector performance.

Findings

Drift velocity measurements agree within 5% with simulations.

Longitudinal and transverse diffusion are accurately modeled.

Results support the use of these parameters for detector optimization.

Abstract

Gaseous time projection chambers (TPC) are a very attractive detector technology for particle tracking. Characterization of both drift velocity and diffusion is of great importance to correctly assess their tracking capabilities. NEXT-White is a High Pressure Xenon gas TPC with electroluminescent amplification, a 1:2 scale model of the future NEXT-100 detector, which will be dedicated to neutrinoless double beta decay searches. NEXT-White has been operating at Canfranc Underground Laboratory (LSC) since December 2016. The drift parameters have been measured using $^{83m}$Kr for a range of reduced drift fields at two different pressure regimes, namely 7.2 bar and 9.1 bar. The results have been compared with Magboltz simulations. Agreement at the 5% level or better has been found for drift velocity, longitudinal diffusion and transverse diffusion.