\Xe{136} is used as the target medium for many experiments searching for \bbnonu. Despite underground operation, cosmic muons that reach the laboratory can produce spallation neutrons causing ...activation of detector materials. A potential background that is difficult to veto using muon tagging comes in the form of \Xe{137} created by the capture of neutrons on \Xe{136}. This isotope decays via beta decay with a half-life of 3.8 minutes and a \Qb\ of \(\sim\)4.16 MeV. This work proposes and explores the concept of adding a small percentage of \He{3} to xenon as a means to capture thermal neutrons and reduce the number of activations in the detector volume. When using this technique we find the contamination from \Xe{137} activation can be reduced to negligible levels in tonne and multi-tonne scale high pressure gas xenon neutrinoless double beta decay experiments running at any depth in an underground laboratory.
Motivated by the possibility of guiding daughter ions from double beta decay events to single-ion sensors for barium tagging, the NEXT collaboration is developing a program of R&D to test radio ...frequency (RF) carpets for ion transport in high pressure xenon gas. This would require carpet functionality in regimes at higher pressures than have been previously reported, implying correspondingly larger electrode voltages than in existing systems. This mode of operation appears plausible for contemporary RF-carpet geometries due to the higher predicted breakdown strength of high pressure xenon relative to low pressure helium, the working medium in most existing RF carpet devices. In this paper we present the first measurements of the high voltage dielectric strength of xenon gas at high pressure and at the relevant RF frequencies for ion transport (in the 10 MHz range), as well as new DC and RF measurements of the dielectric strengths of high pressure argon and helium gases at small gap sizes. We find breakdown voltages that are compatible with stable RF carpet operation given the gas, pressure, voltage, materials and geometry of interest.
A search for narrow resonances that decay into t-tbar pairs has been performed using 130 pb^{-1} of data in the lepton+jets channel collected in p-pbar collisions at \sqrt{s} = 1.8 TeV. There is no ...significant deviation observed from the standard model, and upper limits at the 95 % confidence level on the product of the production cross section and branching fraction to t-tbar are presented for narrow resonances as a function of the resonance mass M_X. These limits are used to exclude the existence of a leptophobic topcolor particle with mass M_X < 560 GeV/c^2 and width \Gamma_X = 0.012 M_X.
Using 85.2 +/- 3.6 pb^-1 of p-pbar collisions collected at sqrt(s)=1.8 TeV with the D0 detector at Fermilab's Tevatron Collider, we present the results of a search for direct pair production of ...scalar top quarks ~t, the supersymmetric partners of the top quark. We examined events containing two or more jets and missing transverse energy, the signature of light scalar top quark decays to charm quarks and neutralinos. After selections, we observe 27 events while expecting 31.1 +/- 6.4 events from known standard model processes. Comparing these results to next-to-leading-order production cross sections, we exclude a significant region of ~t and neutralino phase space. In particular, we exclude the ~t mass m_~t < 122 GeV/c^2 for a neutralino mass of 45 GeV/c^2.
High pressure xenon Time Projection Chambers (TPC) based on secondary scintillation (electroluminescence) signal amplification are being proposed for rare event detection such as directional dark ...matter, double electron capture and double beta decay detection. The discrimination of the rare event through the topological signature of primary ionisation trails is a major asset for this type of TPC when compared to single liquid or double-phase TPCs, limited mainly by the high electron diffusion in pure xenon. Helium admixtures with xenon can be an attractive solution to reduce the electron diffusion significantly, improving the discrimination efficiency of these optical TPCs. We have measured the electroluminescence (EL) yield of Xe-He mixtures, in the range of 0 to 30% He and demonstrated the small impact on the EL yield of the addition of helium to pure xenon. For a typical reduced electric field of 2.5 kV/cm/bar in the scintillation region, the EL yield is lowered by ~ 2%, 3%, 6% and 10% for 10%, 15%, 20% and 30% of helium concentration, respectively. This decrease is less than what has been obtained from the most recent simulation framework in the literature. The impact of the addition of helium on EL statistical fluctuations is negligible, within the experimental uncertainties. The present results are an important benchmark for the simulation tools to be applied to future optical TPCs based on Xe-He mixtures.
We have searched for the signature of 3- and 4-body decays of pair-produced scalar top quarks (stop) in the inclusive final state containing an electron, a muon, and significant missing transverse ...energy using a sample of p p ̄ events corresponding to 108.3 pb −1 of data collected with the DØ detector at Fermilab. The search is done in the framework of the minimal supersymmetric standard model assuming that the neutralino ( χ ̃ 0 1 ) is the lightest supersymmetric particle and is stable. No evidence for a signal is found and we derive cross-section upper limits as a function of stop ( t̃ ) and neutralino masses in different decay scenarios leading to the bℓν χ ̃ 0 1 final state. (Elsevier)
Excellent energy resolution is one of the primary advantages of electroluminescent high pressure xenon TPCs, and searches for rare physics events such as neutrinoless double-beta decay ...(\(\beta\beta0\nu\)) require precise energy measurements. Using the NEXT-White detector, developed by the NEXT (Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon TPC) collaboration, we show for the first time that an energy resolution of 1% FWHM can be achieved at 2.6 MeV, establishing the present technology as the one with the best energy resolution of all xenon detectors for \(\beta\beta0\nu\) searches.
In experiments searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay, the possibility of identifying the two emitted electrons is a powerful tool in rejecting background events and therefore improving the ...overall sensitivity of the experiment. In this paper we present the first measurement of the efficiency of a cut based on the different event signatures of double and single electron tracks, using the data of the NEXT-White detector, the first detector of the NEXT experiment operating underground. Using a \TO\ calibration source to produce signal-like and background-like events with energies near 1.6 MeV, a signal efficiency of \(71.6 \pm 1.5_{\textrm{ stat}} \pm 0.3_{\textrm{ sys}} \%\) for a background acceptance of \(20.6 \pm 0.4_{\textrm{ stat}} \pm 0.3_{\textrm{ sys}} \%\) is found, in good agreement with Monte Carlo simulations. An extrapolation to the energy region of the neutrinoless double beta decay by means of Monte Carlo simulations is also carried out, and the results obtained show an improvement in background rejection over those obtained at lower energies.
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