Title :
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
fDate :
4/1/1990 12:00:00 AM
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;
Journal_Title :
Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on