A study of the scintillation light induced in liquid xenon by electrons and alpha particles

Author

Aprile, Elena ; Mukherjee, Reshmi ; Suzuki, Masayo

Author_Institution

Dept. of Phys., Columbia Univ., New York, NY, USA

Volume

37

Issue

2

fYear

1990

fDate

4/1/1990 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

553

Lastpage

558

Abstract

The time dependence and the intensity of the primary scintillation light in liquid xenon excited by ²⁴¹Am alpha particles and ²⁰⁷Bi internal conversion electrons were measured at different electric field strengths. High-purity liquid xenon was used to fill a parallel-plate ionization chamber equipped with a CaF₂ window coupled to a UV (ultraviolet) sensitive photomultiplier tube. The effect of the specific ionization density on the scintillation light as well as the time correlation between the light signal and the charge signal is reported. It is demonstrated that the fast scintillation signal produced in liquid xenon by an ionizing particle provides an ideal trigger in a detector aiming at a complete three-dimensional event reconstruction with an excellent background rejection capability

Keywords

alpha-particle detection and measurement; electron detection and measurement; scintillation counters; xenon; ²⁰⁷Bi; ²⁴¹Am; CaF₂ window; alpha particles; background rejection capability; electrons; fast scintillation signal; internal conversion; liquid Xe; parallel-plate ionization chamber; photomultiplier tube; scintillation light; specific ionization density; three-dimensional event reconstruction; time dependence; trigger; Alpha particles; Bismuth; Electric variables measurement; Electrons; Event detection; Ionization chambers; Particle measurements; Photomultipliers; Time measurement; Xenon;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/23.106676

Filename

106676