Pulse-shape discrimination and energy resolution of a liquid-argon scintillator with xenon doping

Understand

Liquid-argon scintillation detectors are used in fundamental physics experiments and are being considered for security applications.

• Previous studies have suggested that the addition of small amounts of xenon dopant improves performance in light or signal yield, energy resolution, and particle discrimination.
• In this study, we investigate the detector response for xenon dopant concentrations from 9 +/- 5 ppm to 1100 +/- 500 ppm xenon (by weight) in 6 steps.
• The 3.14-liter detector uses tetraphenyl butadiene (TPB) wavelength shifter with dual photomultiplier tubes and is operated in single-phase mode.