R&D on a Fast LXe TPC with real-time event reconstruction

The FOXFIRE project (Feasibility Of a Xenon detector with Front-end for Ionization Real-time Extraction) aims at the realization of a Liquid Xenon TPC optimized for high rate particle physics experiments, in particular in the field of rare event searches, with particles in the 10–100 MeV energy range. Liquid Xenon has several attractive properties to be exploited resulting in superior time and energy resolution, by using the scintillation light readout with suitable photo-detectors. A novel approach with a complementary TPC readout scheme can improve the space resolution to a level of a few hundred microns. We are studying both the feasibility of a light readout with higher granularity by means of Silicon PhotoMultipliers optimized for the Xenon emission spectrum as well as on an innovative micro-fabricated device capable of charge multiplication in liquid phase. The detector will be equipped with a readout electronics capable of online reconstruction of events, allowing the detector to sustain a high rate of interactions.