Absorption of Scintillation Light in a 100 $ell$ Liquid Xenon$gamma$ Ray Detector and Expected Detector Performance

An 800L liquid xenon scintillation $gamma$ ray detector is being developed for the MEG experiment which will search for $mu^+tomathrm{e}^+gamma$ decay at the Paul Scherrer Institut. Absorption of scintillation light of xenon by impurities might possibly limit the performance of such a detector. We used a 100L prototype with an active volume of 372x372x496 mm$^3$ to study the scintillation light absorption. We have developed a method to evaluate the light absorption, separately from elastic scattering of light, by measuring cosmic rays and $alpha$ sources. By using a suitable purification technique, an absorption length longer than 100 cm has been achieved. The effects of the light absorption on the energy resolution are estimated by Monte Carlo simulation.