3 Search Results

Large-scale low-background detectors are increasingly used in rare-event searches as experimental collaborations push for enhanced sensitivity. However, building such detectors, in practice, creates an abundance of radioassay data especially during the conceptual phase of an experiment when hundreds of materials are screened for radiopurity. A tool is needed to manage and make use of the radioassay screening data to quantitatively assess detector design options. We have developed a Materials Database Application for the nEXO experiment to serve this purpose. Here, this paper describes this database application, explains how it functions, and discusses how it streamlines the design of the experiment.

An RF ion-funnel technique has been developed to extract ions from a high-pressure (10 bar) noble-gas environment into a vacuum (10^-6 mbar). Detailed simulations have been performed and a prototype has been developed for the purpose of extracting ¹³⁶Ba ions from Xe gas with high efficiency. With this prototype, ions have been extracted for the first time from high-pressure xenon gas and argon gas. Systematic studies have been carried out and compared to simulations. This demonstration of extraction of ions, with mass comparable to that of the gas generating the high-pressure, has applications to Ba tagging from a Xe-gas time-projectionmore » chamber for double-beta decay, as well as to the general problem of recovering trace amounts of an ionized element in a heavy (m > 40 u) carrier gas.« less