Müller, J. orcid.org/0009-0007-4572-6146, Grigat, J. orcid.org/0009-0005-4775-0196, Glade-Beucke, R. orcid.org/0009-0006-5455-2232 et al. (7 more authors) (2026) Operating a large-diameter dual-phase liquid xenon TPC in the unshielded PANCAKE facility. The European Physical Journal C, 86 (6). 735. ISSN: 1434-6044
Abstract
Future liquid-xenon (LXe) based observatories for rare processes, such as XLZD, require testing of large components and sub-assemblies in cryogenic liquid or gaseous xenon environments. Here we present results from the stable operation of a shallow dual-phase LXe TPC with an inner diameter of 133.4 cm and a height of 3.1 cm in the unshielded PANCAKE platform, without underground suppression of cosmic-ray backgrounds. A total of 340 kg of xenon was used in the experiment, of which 127 kg constituted the active TPC mass. Measurements of the LXe purity-dependent electron lifetime and the electron drift velocity in LXe demonstrate that sensitive measurements to characterize the TPC performance are possible in a high-background environment, even with a very basic PMT-based light detection system. The threshold was around 15 keV for electronic recoils in TPC operation; it could be straightforwardly lowered by improving the light collection efficiency.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Authors/Creators: |
|
| Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2026. Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Nuclear and Plasma Physics; Physical Sciences |
| Dates: |
|
| Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
| Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences |
| Date Deposited: | 09 Jul 2026 10:29 |
| Last Modified: | 09 Jul 2026 10:29 |
| Status: | Published |
| Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
| Refereed: | Yes |
| Identification Number: | 10.1140/epjc/s10052-026-15735-8 |
| Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:242917 |
Download
Filename: s10052-026-15735-8.pdf
Licence: CC-BY 4.0

CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)