Initial results on energy resolution of the NEXT-White detector

TL;DR

This paper reports initial calibration results of the NEXT-White detector, demonstrating its potential to achieve about 1% FWHM energy resolution at the Q-value for neutrinoless double beta decay, crucial for future physics searches.

Contribution

It provides the first calibration-based energy resolution estimate for the NEXT-White detector, highlighting its promising performance for high-precision measurements.

Findings

Energy calibration shows excellent linearity.

Energy resolution extrapolates to ~1% FWHM at Qββ.

Results support NEXT-White's suitability for neutrinoless double beta decay searches.

Abstract

One of the major goals of the NEXT-White (NEW) detector is to demonstrate the energy resolution that an electroluminescent high pressure xenon TPC can achieve for high energy tracks. For this purpose, energy calibrations with 137Cs and 232Th sources have been carried out as a part of the long run taken with the detector during most of 2017. This paper describes the initial results obtained with those calibrations, showing excellent linearity and an energy resolution that extrapolates to approximately 1% FWHM at Q$_{\beta\beta}$.