No Arabic abstract
A filter system for removing electronegative impurities from liquid argon is described. The active components of the filter are adsorbing molecular sieve and activated-copper-coated alumina granules. The system is capable of purifying liquid argon to an oxygen-equivalent impurity concentration of better than 30 parts per trillion, corresponding to an electron drift lifetime of at least 10 ms. Reduction reactions that occur at about 250 degrees Celsius allow the filter material to be regenerated in-situ through a simple procedure. In the following work we describe the filter design, performance, and regeneration process.
We describe the design of a 20-liter test stand constructed to study fundamental properties of liquid argon (LAr). This system utilizes a simple, cost-effective gas argon (GAr) purification to achieve high purity, which is necessary to study electron transport properties in LAr. An electron drift stack with up to 25 cm length is constructed to study electron drift, diffusion, and attachment at various electric fields. A gold photocathode and a pulsed laser are used as a bright electron source. The operational performance of this system is reported.
Future giant liquid argon (LAr) time projection chambers (TPCs) require a purity of better than 0.1 parts per billion (ppb) to allow the ionised electrons to drift without significant capture by any electronegative impurities. We present a comprehensive study of the effects of electronegative impurity on gaseous and liquid argon scintillation light, an analysis of the efficacy of various purification chemicals, as well as the Liverpool LAr setup, which utilises a novel re-circulation purification system. Of the impurities tested - Air, O_2, H_2O, N_2 and CO_2 in the range of between 0.01 ppm to 1000 ppm - H_2O was found to have the most profound effect on gaseous argon scintillation light, and N_2 was found to have the least. Additionally, a correlation between the slow component decay time and the total energy deposited with 0.01 ppm - 100 ppm O_2 contamination levels in liquid argon has been established. The superiority of molecular sieves over anhydrous complexes at absorbing Ar gas, N_2 gas and H_2O vapour has been quantified using BET isotherm analysis. The efficiency of Cu and P_2O5 at removing O_2 and H_2O impurities from 1 bar N6 argon gas at both room temperature and -130 ^oC was investigated and found to be high. A novel, highly scalable LAr re-circulation system has been developed. The complete system, consisting of a motorised bellows pump operating in liquid and a purification cartridge, were designed and built in-house. The system was operated successfully over many days and achieved a re-circulation rate of 27 litres/hour and high purity.
Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LArTPCs) are ideal detectors for precision neutrino physics. These detectors, when located deep underground, can also be used for measurements of proton decay, and astrophysical neutrinos. The technology must be completely developed, up to very large mass scales, and fully mastered to construct and operate these detectors for this physics program. As part of an integrated plan of developing these detectors, accurate measurements in LArTPC of known particle species in the relevant energy ranges are now deemed as necessary. The LArIAT program aims to directly achieve these goals by deploying LArTPC detectors in a dedicated calibration test beam line at Fermilab. The set of measurements envisaged here are significant for both the short-baseline (SBN) and long-baseline (LBN) neutrino oscillation programs in the US, starting with MicroBooNE in the near term and with the adjoint near and far liquid argon detectors in the Booster beam line at Fermilab envisioned in the mid-term, and moving towards deep underground physics such as with the long-baseline neutrino facility (LBNF) in the longer term.
Scintillation from noble gases is an important technique in particle physics including neutrino beam experiments, neutrino-less double beta-decay and dark matter searches. In liquid argon, the possibility of enhancing the light yield by the addition of a small quantity of xenon (doping at 10-1000 ppm) has been of particular interest. While the pathway for energy transfer between argon and xenon excimers is well known, the time-dependence of the process has not been fully studied in the context of a physics-based model. In this paper we present a model of the energy transfer process together with a fit to xenon-doped argon data. We have measured the diffusion limited rate constant as a function of xenon dopant. We find that the time dependence of the energy transfer is consistent with diffusion-limited reactions. Additionally, we find that commercially obtained argon can have a small xenon component (4 ppm). Our result will facilitate the use of xenon-doped liquid argon in future experiments.
Particle detectors based on liquid argon (LAr) have recently become recognized as an extremely attractive technology for the direct detection of dark matter as well as the measurement of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CE$ u$NS). The Chinese argon group at Institute of High Energy Physics has been studying the LAr detector technology and a LAr detector has been operating steadily. A program of using a dual phase LAr detector to measure the CE$ u$NS at Taishang Nuclear Power Plant has been proposed and the R&D work is ongoing. Considering the requirements of ultra-low radio-purity and high photon collection efficiency, SiPMs will be a good choice and will be used in the detector. In this proceeding, an introduction of the LAr detector and the measurement results of SiPM array at LAr temperature will be presented.