Ponente
Descripción
Xenon scintillation has been widely used in recent particle physics experiments. However, information on the primary scintillation yield in the absence of recombination is still scarce and dispersed. The mean energy required to produce a Vacuum Ultraviolet (VUV) scintillation photon (Wsc) in gaseous Xe has been measured in the 30–120 eV range. Lower Wsc-values are often reported for alpha particles compared to electrons produced by gamma- and x-rays, being this difference not understood.
We carried out a systematic study of the absolute primary scintillation yield in Xe at 1.2 bar, using a Gas Proportional Scintillation Counter. The simulation model of the detector's geometric efficiency was validated using the absolute secondary scintillation yield. The Wsc parameter was measured for gamma- and x-rays in the 5.9–60 keV energy range, and for alpha-particles in the 1.5–2.5 MeV energy range.
Neglecting the 3rd continuum emission, a mean Wsc-value of 38.7 ± 0.6 (sta.) +7.7 −7.2 (sys.) eV was obtained, and no significant dependency neither on radiation type nor on energy has been observed. Results considering the 2nd and 3rd continua separately are also presented. Our experimental Wsc-values agree with both state-of-art simulations and literature data obtained for alpha-particles. The discrepancy between our results and the experimental values found in literature for x/gamma-rays is attributed to undressed large systematic errors.
