A high pressure xenon time projection chamber for double beta decay

[摘要] This thesis describes the design, construction and performance of a high-pressure,xenon, gas time projection chamber (TPC) for the study of doublebeta decay in ^(136) Xe. The TPC when operating at 5 atm can accommodate 28moles of 60% enriched ^(136) Xe. The TPC has operated as a detector at Caltechsince 1986. It is capable of reconstructing a charged particle trajectory and caneasily distinguish between different kinds of charged particles. A gaspurification and xenon gas recovery system were developed. The electronics forthe 338 channels of readout was developed along with a data acquistion system.Currently, the detector is being prepared at the University of Neuchatel forinstallation in the low background laboratory situated in the St. Gotthard tunnel,Switzerland. In one year of runtime the detector should be sensitive to a 0νlifetime of the order of 10^(24) y, which corresponds to a neutrino mass in therange 0.3 to 3.3 eV.

[发布机构] University:California Institute of Technology;Department:Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy

[关键词] Physics