A self-triggerable liquid xenon ionization drift chamber with a multi-segmented collector

A liquid xenon ionization drift chamber with a multi-segmented collector was tested to understand its basic performance. Scintillation both in gaseous and liquid xenon made the apparatus self-triggerable in the drift time measurements of ionized electron swarms. The drift times, which determine a position in a coordinate in space, was measured with alpha-particle sources in gaseous xenon and the resolution was 300 nsec in FWHM. Another coordinates are determined with the position of a segment (pad) on the collector. The energy of radiation was measured from its ionization yields. The resolution was measured to be 5.3% in FWHM with one pad in the pulse height spectrum obtained with gamma-rays from ⁶⁰Co in liquid xenon, and that was about 2.5% for alpha-particles measured with two to three pads in gaseous xenon, depending on signal to noise ratio in each pad