https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-021-09801-6
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
Performance of the ReD TPC, a novel double-phase LAr detector with silicon photomultiplier readout
1
Department of Physics, University of Houston, 7704, Houston, TX, USA
2
Physics and Astronomy Department, Università degli Studi di Catania and INFN, 90123, Catania, Italy
3
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Catania, 90123, Catania, Italy
4
Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, 05508-090, São Paulo, Brazil
5
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Cagliari, 09042, Cagliari, Italy
6
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Napoli, 80126, Naples, Italy
7
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Genova, 16146, Genoa, Italy
8
Physics Department, Princeton University, 08544, Princeton, NJ, USA
9
Physics Department, Università di Roma Tre, 00146, Rome, Italy
10
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Roma Tre, 00146, Rome, Italy
11
INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, 67010, Assergi, AQ, Italy
12
Physics Department, Università degli Studi, 09042, Cagliari, Italy
13
Istituto Nazionale Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Pisa, 56127, Pisa, Italy
14
Physics Department, Università degli Studi Federico II, 80126, Naples, Italy
15
Physics Department, Sapienza Università di Roma, 00185, Rome, Italy
16
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Roma, 00185, Rome, Italy
17
National Research Centre Kurchatov Institute, 123182, Moscow, Russia
18
APC, Université Paris Diderot, CNRS/IN2P3, CEA/Irfu, Obs. de Paris, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 75205, Paris, France
19
Physics Department, Williams College, 01267, Williamstown, MA, USA
20
LPNHE Paris, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Université Paris Diderot, CNRS/IN2P3, 75252, Paris, France
21
Gran Sasso Science Institute, 67100, L’Aquila, AQ, Italy
22
Università di Enna Kore, 94100, Enna, Italy
23
Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, Istituto Nazionale Fisica Nucleare, 95123, Catania, Italy
24
Department of Physics, Royal Holloway University of London, TW20 0EX, Egham, UK
25
Department of Pharmacy, Università degli Studi Federico II, 80131, Naples, Italy
26
Physics Department, Temple University, 19122, Philadelphia, PA, USA
27
Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics, 630090, Novosibirsk, Russia
28
Novosibirsk State University, 630090, Novosibirsk, Russia
29
Physics Department, Università degli Studi di Genova, 16146, Genoa, Italy
30
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Bologna, 40126, Bologna, Italy
31
AstroCeNT, Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences, 00-614, Warsaw, Poland
32
Physics and Astronomy Department, University of California, 90095, Los Angeles, CA, USA
33
Institute of High Energy Physics, 100049, Beijing, China
34
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China
Received:
24
June
2021
Accepted:
2
November
2021
Published online:
18
November
2021
A double-phase argon Time Projection Chamber (TPC), with an active mass of 185 g, has been designed and constructed for the Recoil Directionality (ReD) experiment. The aim of the ReD project is to investigate the directional sensitivity of argon-based TPCs via columnar recombination to nuclear recoils in the energy range of interest (20–
) for direct dark matter searches. The key novel feature of the ReD TPC is a readout system based on cryogenic Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs), which are employed and operated continuously for the first time in an argon TPC. Over the course of 6 months, the ReD TPC was commissioned and characterised under various operating conditions using 
-ray and neutron sources, demonstrating remarkable stability of the optical sensors and reproducibility of the results. The scintillation gain and ionisation amplification of the TPC were measured to be 
photoelectrons/photon and 
photoelectrons/electron, respectively. The ratio of the ionisation to scintillation signals (S2/S1), instrumental for the positive identification of a candidate directional signal induced by WIMPs, has been investigated for both nuclear and electron recoils. At a drift field of 183 V/cm, an S2/S1 dispersion of 12% was measured for nuclear recoils of approximately 60–
, as compared to 18% for electron recoils depositing 60 keV of energy. The detector performance reported here meets the requirements needed to achieve the principal scientific goals of the ReD experiment in the search for a directional effect due to columnar recombination. A phenomenological parameterisation of the recombination probability in LAr is presented and employed for modeling the dependence of scintillation quenching and charge yield on the drift field for electron recoils between 50–500 keV and fields up to 1000 V/cm.
© The Author(s) 2021
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