A liquid scintillation detector for radioassay of gadolinium-loaded liquid scintillator for the LZ Outer Detector

Haselschwardt, S. J.; Shaw, S.; Nelson, H. N.; Witherell, M. S.; Yeh, Minfang; Lesko, K. T.; Cole, A.; Kyre, S.; White, D. T.

doi:10.1016/j.nima.2019.05.055

Title: A liquid scintillation detector for radioassay of gadolinium-loaded liquid scintillator for the LZ Outer Detector

Journal Article · Wed May 22 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research. Section A, Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2019.05.055· OSTI ID:1550796

Haselschwardt, S. J. ^[1]; Shaw, S. ^[1]; Nelson, H. N. ^[1]; Witherell, M. S. ^[2];

^[3]; Lesko, K. T. ^[4]; Cole, A. ^[4]; Kyre, S. ^[1]; White, D. T. ^[1]

Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Here, we report on the design and performance of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) “Screener”, a small liquid scintillator detector consisting of ≈ 23 kg of LAB-based gadolinium-loaded liquid scintillator (GdLS) to be used in the LZ Outer Detector. The Outer Detector will be filled with 17.3 tonnes of GdLS and will surround the central liquid xenon time projection chamber of LZ. Its primary function will be to tag neutron events in the liquid xenon which could mimic a WIMP dark matter signal. To meet the deadtime requirements for the Outer Detector, the radioimpurity levels in the GdLS must be kept below ≲ 0.07 mBq/kg. This background level corresponds to a rate of ≈50 Hz above an energy threshold of 100 keV. The Screener was operated in the ultra-low-background environment of the former LUX water shield in the Davis Laboratory at the Sanford Underground Research Facility for radioassay of the GdLS. Careful selection of detector materials and use of ultra-low-background PMTs allows the measurement of a variety of radioimpurities. The ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio in the scintillator is measured to be (2.83 ± 0.06(stat.) ± 0.01(sys.)) x 10^–17 . Use of pulse shape discrimination allows the concentration of isotopes throughout the ²³⁸U, ²³⁵U, , and ²³²Th chains to be measured by fitting the collected spectra from α and β events. We reveal that equilibrium is broken in the ²³⁸U and ²³²Th chains and that a crucial portion of the contamination in the GdLS results from decays in the ²²⁷Ac subchain of the ²³⁵U series. Predictions for the singles rate in the Outer Detector are presented. The rate from radioimpurities above 100 keV in the GdLS is estimated to be 97.9 ± 6.4 Hz, with 65.5 ± 1.9 Hz resulting from -decays.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Cite

Export

Save

Research Organization:: Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0012704; AC02-05CH11231; SC0011702

OSTI ID:: 1550796

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1526617; OSTI ID: 1600662; OSTI ID: 1777234

Report Number(s):: BNL-211933-2019-JAAM

Journal Information:: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research. Section A, Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 937, Issue C; ISSN 0168-9002

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Citation Metrics:

Cited by: 7 works

Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (46)

Study of a prototype water Cherenkov detector for the Daya Bay neutrino experiment Yu, Zeyuan; Lu, Haoqi; Yang, Changgen Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 682 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2012.04.050	journal	August 2012
Purification of lanthanides for large neutrino detectors: Thorium removal from gadolinium chloride Yeh, M.; Cumming, J. B.; Hans, S. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 618, Issue 1-3 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2010.02.124	journal	June 2010
The ZEPLIN-III anti-coincidence veto detector Akimov, D. Yu.; Araújo, H. M.; Barnes, E. J. Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 34, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.astropartphys.2010.06.010	journal	October 2010
Observation in the Kamiokande-II detector of the neutrino burst from supernova SN1987A Hirata, K. S.; Kajita, T.; Koshiba, M. Physical Review D, Vol. 38, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.38.448	journal	July 1988
SNO+ Scintillator Purification and Assay Ford, R.; Chen, M.; Chkvorets, O. TOPICAL WORKSHOP ON LOW RADIOACTIVITY TECHNIQUES: LRT-2010, AIP Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3579580	conference	January 2011
Final results from the Palo Verde neutrino oscillation experiment Boehm, F.; Busenitz, J.; Cook, B. Physical Review D, Vol. 64, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.64.112001	journal	November 2001
Status of GADZOOKS!: Neutron Tagging in Super-Kamiokande Fernández, P. Nuclear and Particle Physics Proceedings, Vol. 273-275 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nuclphysbps.2015.09.050	journal	April 2016
Performance of the Hamamatsu R11410 photomultiplier tube in cryogenic xenon environments Baudis, L.; Behrens, A.; Ferella, A. Journal of Instrumentation, Vol. 8, Issue 04 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/8/04/p04026	journal	April 2013
Fluorescence of Solutions Bombarded with High Energy Radiation (Energy Transport in Liquids) Part II Kallmann, Hartmut; Furst, Milton Physical Review, Vol. 81, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1103/physrev.81.853	journal	March 1951
Dark Matter Search Backgrounds from Primordial Radionuclide Chain Disequilibrium Malling, D. C.; Fiorucci, S.; Pangilinan, M. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1305.5183	preprint	January 2013
Oxygen quenching in a LAB based liquid scintillator and the nitrogen bubbling model Hua-Lin, Xiao; Jing-Shan, Deng; Nai-Yan, Wang Chinese Physics C, Vol. 34, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1088/1674-1137/34/5/011	journal	May 2010
Measurement of the 14C Content in Liquid Scintillators by Means of a Small-Volume Detector in the Low-Background Chamber of the Baksan Neutrino Observatory Barabanov, I. R.; Bezrukov, L. B.; Veresnikova, A. V. Physics of Atomic Nuclei, Vol. 80, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063778817060059	journal	November 2017
Removal of cosmogenic 7Be from scintillators Vogelaar, R. B.; Benziger, J.; Calaprice, F. P. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 372, Issue 1-2 https://doi.org/10.1016/0168-9002(95)01239-7	journal	March 1996
Scintillations from Organic Crystals: Specific Fluorescence and Relative Response to Different Radiations Birks, J. B. Proceedings of the Physical Society. Section A, Vol. 64, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1088/0370-1298/64/10/303	journal	October 1951
Absolute Scintillation Efficiency of Anthracene Crystals Wright, G. T. Proceedings of the Physical Society. Section B, Vol. 68, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1088/0370-1301/68/11/317	journal	November 1955
Improved measurements of the neutrino mixing angle θ 13 with the Double Chooz detector Abe, Y.; dos Anjos, J. C.; Barriere, J. C. Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2014, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP10(2014)086	journal	October 2014
Compton suppression neutron activation analysis: Past, present and future Landsberger, S.; Peshev, S. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry Articles, Vol. 202, Issue 1-2 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02037943	journal	January 1996
An Anticoincidence Gamma‐Ray Scintillation Spectrometer Albert, Richard D. Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 24, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1770609	journal	December 1953
Response of Some Scintillation Crystals to Charged Particles Taylor, C. J.; Jentschke, W. K.; Remley, M. E. Physical Review, Vol. 84, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.84.1034	journal	December 1951
Black Hills State University Underground Campus Mount, Brianna J.; Thomas, Keenan J.; Oliver-Mallory, Kelsey C. Applied Radiation and Isotopes, Vol. 126 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apradiso.2017.02.025	journal	August 2017
Measurement of the 14C abundance in a low-background liquid scintillator Alimonti, G.; Angloher, G.; Arpesella, C. Physics Letters B, Vol. 422, Issue 1-4 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0370-2693(97)01565-7	journal	March 1998
Production of a gadolinium-loaded liquid scintillator for the Daya Bay reactor neutrino experiment Beriguete, Wanda; Cao, Jun; Ding, Yayun Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 763 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2014.05.119	journal	November 2014
Observation of Energy and Baseline Dependent Reactor Antineutrino Disappearance in the RENO Experiment Choi, J. H.; Choi, W. Q.; Choi, Y. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 116, Issue 21 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.211801	journal	May 2016
An ultra-low background PMT for liquid xenon detectors Akerib, D. S.; Bai, X.; Bernard, E. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 703 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2012.11.020	journal	March 2013
Semiconductor Detectors and Double Beta Decay Goulding, F. S.; Landis, D. A.; Luke, P. N. IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, Vol. 31, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1109/TNS.1984.4333263	journal	January 1984
Scintillation decay time and pulse shape discrimination in oxygenated and deoxygenated solutions of linear alkylbenzene for the SNO+ experiment O’Keeffe, H. M.; O’Sullivan, E.; Chen, M. C. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 640, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2011.03.027	journal	June 2011
Laboratory studies on the removal of radon-born lead from KamLAND׳s organic liquid scintillator Keefer, G.; Grant, C.; Piepke, A. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 769 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2014.09.050	journal	January 2015
${}^{7}{Be}$ solar neutrino measurement with KamLAND Gando, A.; Gando, Y.; Hanakago, H. Physical Review C, Vol. 92, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.92.055808	journal	November 2015
Identification of radiopure titanium for the LZ dark matter experiment and future rare event searches Akerib, D. S.; Akerlof, C. W.; Akimov, D. Yu. Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 96 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.astropartphys.2017.09.002	journal	November 2017
The Super-Kamiokande detector Fukuda, S.; Fukuda, Y.; Hayakawa, T. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 501, Issue 2-3 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-9002(03)00425-X	journal	April 2003
Neutrino physics with JUNO An, Fengpeng; An, Guangpeng; An, Qi Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics, Vol. 43, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1088/0954-3899/43/3/030401	journal	February 2016
A new gadolinium-loaded liquid scintillator for reactor neutrino detection Ding, Yayun; Zhang, Zhiyong; Liu, Jinchang Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 584, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2007.09.044	journal	January 2008
Absolute Quantum Efficiency of Photofluorescence of Anthracene Crystals Wright, G. T. Proceedings of the Physical Society. Section B, Vol. 68, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1088/0370-1301/68/4/306	journal	April 1955
Lowering the radioactivity of the photomultiplier tubes for the XENON1T dark matter experiment Aprile, E.; Agostini, F.; Alfonsi, M. The European Physical Journal C, Vol. 75, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-015-3657-5	journal	November 2015
ACTIVIA: Calculation of isotope production cross-sections and yields Back, J. J.; Ramachers, Y. A. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 586, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2007.12.008	journal	February 2008
Performance of the veto detector incorporated into the ZEPLIN-III experiment Ghag, C.; Akimov, D. Yu.; Araújo, H. M. Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 35, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.astropartphys.2011.06.006	journal	September 2011
Development of a Gd loaded liquid scintillator for electron anti-neutrino spectroscopy Piepke, Andreas G.; Moser, S. Wayne; Novikov, Vladimir M. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 432, Issue 2-3 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-9002(99)00530-6	journal	August 1999
Chemical purification of lanthanides for low-background experiments Boiko, R. S. International Journal of Modern Physics A, Vol. 32, Issue 30 https://doi.org/10.1142/S0217751X17430059	journal	October 2017
Geant4—a simulation toolkit Agostinelli, S.; Allison, J.; Amako, K. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 506, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-9002(03)01368-8	journal	July 2003
The Nature of the Saturation Effect of Fluorescent Scintillators Chou, C. N. Physical Review, Vol. 87, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.87.904	journal	September 1952
Measurement of electron antineutrino oscillation based on 1230 days of operation of the Daya Bay experiment An, F. P.; Balantekin, A. B.; Band, H. R. Physical Review D, Vol. 95, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.95.072006	journal	April 2017
Energy Transfer by Means of Collision in Liquid Organic Solutions under High Energy and Ultraviolet Excitations Furst, Milton; Kallmann, Hartmut Physical Review, Vol. 94, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1103/physrev.94.503	journal	May 1954
The veto system of the DarkSide-50 experiment Agnes, P.; Agostino, L.; Albuquerque, I. F. M. Journal of Instrumentation, Vol. 11, Issue 03 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/11/03/P03016	journal	March 2016
Reflectivity Spectra for Commonly Used Reflectors Janecek, M. IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, Vol. 59, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1109/TNS.2012.2183385	journal	June 2012
The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment Akerib, D. S.; Bai, X.; Bedikian, S. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 704 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2012.11.135	journal	March 2013
The Sanford Underground Research Facility Heise, J. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Vol. 2156, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/2156/1/012172	journal	December 2021

Cited By (1)

Optical calibration system for the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) outer detector Turner, W.; Baxter, A.; Birch, H. J. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 1010 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2021.165551	journal	September 2021

Similar Records

Identification of radiopure titanium for the LZ dark matter experiment and future rare event searches

Journal Article · Wed Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Astroparticle Physics · OSTI ID:1550796

Akerib, D. S.; Akerlof, C. W.; Akimov, D. Yu.; +203 more

Measurement of the gamma ray background in the Davis cavern at the Sanford Underground Research Facility

Journal Article · Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 EST 2020 · Astroparticle Physics · OSTI ID:1550796

Akerib, D. S.; Akerlof, C. W.; Alsum, S. K.; +164 more

An ultra-low background PMT for liquid xenon detectors

Journal Article · Thu Nov 15 00:00:00 EST 2012 · Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research. Section A, Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment · OSTI ID:1550796

Akerib, D. S.; Bai, X.; Bernard, E.; +61 more

Related Subjects

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
Low-background
Gadolinium
Liquid scintillator

Title: A liquid scintillation detector for radioassay of gadolinium-loaded liquid scintillator for the LZ Outer Detector

Citation Formats

References (46)

Cited By (1)

Similar Records

Related Subjects