https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-024-12800-y
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
Reactor neutrino physics potentials of cryogenic pure-CsI crystal
1
Experimental Physics Division, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China
2
School of Physics, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China
3
School of Nuclear Science and Engineering, North China Electric Power University, 102206, Beijing, China
4
State Key Laboratory of Particle Detection and Electronics, 100049, Beijing, China
5
Astro-particle Physics Division, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, 100049, Beijing, China
6
State Key Laboratory of High Power Semiconductor Laser, College of Physics, Changchun University of Science and Technology, 130022, Changchun, Jilin, China
7
Beijing Key Laboratory of Passive Safety Technology for Nuclear Energy, School of Nuclear Science and Engineering, North China Electric Power University, 102206, Beijing, China
8
School of Electronic, Electrical Engineering and Physics, Fujian University of Technology, 350118, Fuzhou, China
g
sunxl@ihep.ac.cn
h
guocong@ihep.ac.cn
Received:
28
July
2023
Accepted:
11
April
2024
Published online:
29
April
2024
This paper presents a world-leading scintillation light yield among inorganic crystals measured from a 0.5 kg pure-CsI detector operated at 77 Kelvin. Scintillation photons were detected by two 2-inch Hamamatsu SiPM arrays equipped with cryogenic front-end electronics. Benefiting the light yield enhancement of pure-CsI at low temperatures and the high photon detection efficiency of SiPM, a light yield of 30.1 photoelectrons per keV energy deposit was obtained for X-rays and 
-rays with energies from 5.9 to 59.6 keV. Instrumental and physical effects in the light yield measurement are carefully analyzed. This is the first stable cryogenic operation of kg-scale pure-CsI crystal readout by SiPM arrays at liquid nitrogen temperatures for several days. The world-leading light yield opens a door for the usage of pure-CsI crystal in several fields, particularly in detecting the coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering of reactor neutrinos. The potential of using pure-CsI crystals in neutrino physics is discussed in the paper.
© The Author(s) 2024
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