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Title: Primary track recovery in high-definition gas time projection chambers

Journal Article · · European Physical Journal. C, Particles and Fields (Online)

Abstract We develop and validate a new algorithm called primary track recovery () that effectively deconvolves known physics and detector effects from nuclear recoil tracks in gas time projection chambers (TPCs) with high-resolution readout. This gives access to the primary track charge, length, and vector direction (helping to resolve the “head-tail” ambiguity). Additionally, provides a measurement of the transverse and longitudinal diffusion widths, which can be used to determine the absolute position of tracks in the drift direction for detector fiducialization. Using simulated helium recoils in an atmospheric pressure TPC with a 70:30 mixture of $$$$\hbox {He:CO}_2$$$$ He:CO 2 we compare the performance of to traditional methods for all key track variables. We find that the algorithm reduces reconstruction errors, including those caused by charge integration, for tracks with mean length-to-width ratios 1.4 and above, corresponding to recoil energies of 20 keV and above in the studied TPCs. We show that improves on existing methods for head-tail disambiguation, particularly for highly inclined tracks, and improves the determination of the absolute position of recoils on the drift axis via transverse diffusion. We find that can partially recover charge structure integrated out by the detector in the z direction, but that its determination of energy and length have worse resolution compared to existing methods. We use experimental data to qualitatively verify these findings and discuss implications for future directional detectors at the low-energy frontier.

Research Organization:
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), Newport News, VA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0007852; SC0010504
OSTI ID:
1863107
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1880991
Report Number(s):
JLAB-PHY-22-3692; DOE/OR/23177-5574; 324; PII: 10283
Journal Information:
European Physical Journal. C, Particles and Fields (Online), Journal Name: European Physical Journal. C, Particles and Fields (Online) Vol. 82 Journal Issue: 4; ISSN 1434-6052
Publisher:
Springer Science + Business MediaCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
Germany
Language:
English

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