Cosmic Ray Measurements Using Charge and Light Readout in a Pixelated Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber

TL;DR

This paper reports on cosmic ray measurements using a pixelated liquid argon TPC with combined charge and light readout, demonstrating improved detection performance and potential for large-scale neutrino detectors.

Contribution

It introduces a second prototype of a pixelated liquid argon TPC with dual readout, showing enhanced cosmic ray detection and energy resolution capabilities.

Findings

Successful cosmic-ray muon detection with combined charge and light readout

Demonstrated improved energy resolution over previous prototypes

Highlighted potential for scaling to kiloton detectors

Abstract

Liquid argon time projection chambers have emerged as a competitive technology for detecting solar neutrinos. The SoLAr collaboration was formed to explore argon detectors with pixelated light and charge readout, aiming for high detection efficiency and improved energy resolution. Building on the success of an initial prototype, we present results obtained with a second SoLAr prototype (V2), a $30 \times 30 \times 30$ cm$^{3}$ time projection chamber operated in a cryostat containing several hundred kilograms of liquid argon. We report measurements of cosmic-ray muons using both tracking and calorimetry from light and charge sensors, and we highlight the improved performance achieved through combined charge and light reconstruction. These results demonstrate the promise of dual-readout detectors and motivate future prototyping efforts toward kiloton-scale facilities.