https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-023-11988-9
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
A 50 l Cygno prototype overground characterization
1
LIBPhys, Department of Physics, University of Coimbra, 3004-516, Coimbra, Portugal
2
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Roma TRE, 00146, Rome, Italy
3
Dipartimento di Matematica e Fisica, Università Roma TRE, 00146, Rome, Italy
4
Gran Sasso Science Institute, 67100, L’Aquila, Italy
5
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, 67100, Assergi, Italy
6
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, 00044, Frascati, Italy
7
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Roma, 00185, Rome, Italy
8
Dipartimento di Fisica, Sapienza Università di Roma, 00185, Rome, Italy
9
ENEA Centro Ricerche Frascati, 00044, Frascati, Italy
10
Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas, 22290-180, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
11
Universidade Estadual de Campinas - UNICAMP, 13083-859, Campinas, SP, Brazil
12
Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Faculdade de Engenharia, 36036-900, Juiz de Fora, MG, Brazil
13
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield, S3 7RH, Sheffield, UK
14
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Chimica, Materiali e Ambiente, Sapienza Università di Roma, 00185, Rome, Italy
k
gianluca.cavoto@roma1.infn.it
Received:
11
May
2023
Accepted:
30
August
2023
Published online:
21
October
2023
The nature of dark matter is still unknown and an experimental program to look for dark matter particles in our Galaxy should extend its sensitivity to light particles in the GeV mass range and exploit the directional information of the DM particle motion (Vahsen et al. in CYGNUS: feasibility of a nuclear recoil observatory with directional sensitivity to dark matter and neutrinos, arXiv:2008.12587, 2020). The Cygno project is studying a gaseous time projection chamber operated at atmospheric pressure with a Gas Electron Multiplier (Sauli in Nucl Instrum Meth A 386:531, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-9002(96)01172-2, 1997) amplification and with an optical readout as a promising technology for light dark matter and directional searches. In this paper we describe the operation of a 50 l prototype named LIME (Long Imaging ModulE) in an overground location at Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (LNF) of INFN. This prototype employs the technology under study for the 1 cubic meter Cygno demonstrator to be installed at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) (Amaro et al. in Instruments 2022, 6(1), https://www.mdpi.com/2410-390X/6/1/6, 2022). We report the characterization of LIME with photon sources in the energy range from few keV to several tens of keV to understand the performance of the energy reconstruction of the emitted electron. We achieved a low energy threshold of few keV and an energy resolution over the whole energy range of 10–20%, while operating the detector for several weeks continuously with very high operational efficiency. The energy spectrum of the reconstructed electrons is then reported and will be the basis to identify radio-contaminants of the LIME materials to be removed for future Cygno detectors.
© The Author(s) 2023
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Funded by SCOAP3. SCOAP3 supports the goals of the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development.
