First ground-level laboratory test of the two-phase xenon emission detector RED-100

TL;DR

RED-100 is a novel two-phase xenon detector designed for detecting reactor antineutrinos via coherent elastic scattering, with ground-level testing confirming its feasibility at a low energy threshold of 4 electrons.

Contribution

This paper presents the first ground-level laboratory test of the RED-100 detector, demonstrating its capability to detect low-energy nuclear recoils from antineutrinos.

Findings

Successful detection threshold of 4 ionization electrons.

Feasibility of using RED-100 for reactor antineutrino detection.

Ground-level testing validates detector design and performance.

Abstract

RED-100 is a two-phase detector for study of coherent elastic scattering of reactor electron antineutrinos off xenon atomic nuclei. The detector contains a total of 200 kg of liquid xenon in a titanium cryostat with 160 kg of xenon in active volume inside a Teflon-made light collection cage associated with electrode system. The active volume is viewed by two arrays of nineteen 3"-diameter Hamamatsu R11410-20 PMTs assembled in two planes on top and bottom. The electrode system is equipped with an electron shutter (a patented device) to reduce a "spontaneous" single-electron noise. The detector was tested in a ground-level laboratory. The obtained results demonstrate that detection of coherent elastic scattering of reactor antineutrinos off xenon nuclei at Kalinin nuclear power plant with the RED-100 detector is feasible with a threshold of 4 ionization electrons.