Technical Publications

PandaX-4T experiment is a deep-underground dark matter direct search experiment that employs a dual-phase time projection chamber with a sensitive volume containing 3.7 tonne of liquid xenon. The detector of PandaX-4T is capable of simultaneously collecting the primary scintillation and ionization signals, utilizing their ratio to discriminate dark matter signals from background sources such as gamma rays and beta particles. The signal response model plays a crucial role in interpreting the data obtained by PandaX-4T. It describes the conversion from the deposited energy by dark matter interactions to the detectable signals within the detector. The signal response model is utilized in various PandaX-4T results. This work provides a comprehensive description of the procedures involved in constructing and parameter-fitting the signal response model for the energy range of approximately 1 keV to 25 keV for electronic recoils and 6 keV to 90 keV for nuclear recoils. It also covers the signal reconstruction, selection, and correction methods, which are crucial components integrated into the signal response model.

The PandaX-4T distillation system, designed for the removal of krypton and radon from xenon, is evaluated for its radon removal efficiency using a ²²²Rn source during the online distillation process. The PandaX-4T dark matter detector is employed to monitor the temporal evolution of radon activity. To determine the radon reduction factor, the experimental data of radon atoms introduced into and bypassed the distillation system is compared. The results indicate that the PandaX-4T distillation system achieves a radon reduction factor exceeding 190 at the flow rate of 10 slpm and the reflux ratio of 1.44. Gas-only online distillation process of a flow rate of 20 slpm is also conducted without observing significant reduction of radon levels in the detector. This observation suggests that the migration flow of radon atoms from the liquid phase to the gas phase is limited, and the flow rate of gas circulation and duration of the process are insignificant compared to the total xenon mass of 5.6 tons in the detector. This study provides the experimental data to support the efficient removal of radon at  ∼Bq level using the PandaX-4T distillation system, which is the prerequisite of the radon background control in the detector. The further operation with higher flow rate will be applied for the upcoming science run in PandaX-4T.

The dual-phase xenon detector is one of the most sensitive detectors for dark matter direct detection, where the energy deposition of incoming particles can be converted into light and electrons through xenon excitation and ionization. The detector response to signal energy deposition varies significantly with the electric field in liquid xenon . We study the detector light yield and its dependence on the electric field in PandaX-II dual-phase detector containing 580 kg liquid xenon in the sensitive volume. From measurement, the light yield at electric field from 0 V/cm to 317 V/cm is obtained for energy deposition up to 236 keV.

${}^{83m}Kr$ with a short lifetime is an ideal calibration source for liquid xenon or liquid argon detector. The ${}^{83m}Kr$ isomer can be generated through the decay of ${}^{83}Rb$ isotope, and ${}^{83}Rb$ is usually produced by proton beams bombarding natural krypton atoms. In this paper, we report a successful production of ${}^{83}Rb$/$ {}^{83m}Kr$ with $3.4$ $MeV$ proton beam energy and measure the production rate with such low proton energy for the first time. Another production attempt was performed with newly available 20 MeV proton beam in China, the production rate is consistent with our expectation. The produced ${}^{83m}Kr$ source has been successfully injected into PandaX-II liquid xenon detector and yielded enough statistics for detector calibration.

Waveform digitizers are key readout instruments in particle physics experiments. In this paper, we present a waveform digitizer for the PandaX dark matter experiments. It supports both external-trigger readout and triggerless readout, accommodating the needs of low rate full-waveform readout and channel-independent low threshold acquisition, respectively. This digitizer is a 8-channel VME board with a sampling rate of 500 MS/s and 14-bit resolution for each channel. A digitizer system consisting of 72 channels has been tested in situ of the PandaX-4T experiment. We report the system performance with real data.

An essential challenge in seal design is to provide an ultra-low leak rate at cryogenic temperatures and high pressures. In this paper, the performance of demountable indium seals under a charging pressure of 8.5 MPa A and at cryogenic temperatures down to −190 °C was investigated. Three indium seal structures with a diameter of 30 mm were specifically designed and tested. All three structures went through both room temperature and cryogenic temperature tests in cycles with a pressure of up to 8.5 MPa A. In addition, leak rate experiments regarding the creep relaxation effect of the indium ring were conducted. The results showed that the leak rates of all three structures were lower than $1 \times 10^{-10} Pa\thinspace m^{3} s^{-1}$ at both room temperature and cryogenic temperature with the pressure up to 8.5 MPa A when the torque was 8 or 12 N m. It was concluded that the linear loads for achieving a successful indium seal were 163, 171, and $220 N mm^{-1}$ alongside its circumference for the 2 mm indium M-T structure, the 3 mm indium M-T structure, and the Z-shaped seal structure, respectively. Furthermore, although the torque slightly dropped after the assembly due to the creep relaxation effect, the leak rates of the structure were still lower than $1 \times 10^{-10} Pa\thinspace m^{3} s^{-1}$ three days after the assembly. The present work is helpful for designing ultra-low leak rate demountable indium seals at cryogenic temperatures and high pressures.

The purpose of the PandaX experiments is to search for the possible events resulted from dark matter particles, neutrinoless double beta decay or other rare processes with xenon detectors. Understanding the energy depositions from backgrounds or calibration sources in these detectors is very important. The program of BambooMC is created to perform the Geant4-based Monte Carlo simulation, providing reference information for the experiments. We introduce the design and features of BambooMC in this report. The running of the program depends on a configuration file, which combines different detectors, event generators, physics lists and analysis packs together in one simulation. The program can be easily extended and applied to other experiments.

PandaX-4T, the new generation of the PandaX detector, is a xenon dual-phase detector with about six tons of liquid xenon as target for dark matter search. A cryogenics and xenon handling system is designed to liquify and purify this large detector. In this paper, the results on the commission of the cryogenics and gas handling system are reported. The maximum cooling power of ~ 580 W at 178 K with three cooperating coldheads has been achieved. The filling rate with an assisted liquid nitrogen cooling can reach ~ 700 kg/day. The average rate of recuperation by liquid nitrogen is around 440 kg/day. The maximum total purification speed of two circulation loops is up to ~ 155 slpm. Each loop is using a large heat exchanger with a measured heat exchange efficiency of ~ 97.5+-0.5%.

The PandaX-III experiment will search for neutrinoless double beta decay of ${}^{136}Xe$ with high pressure gaseous time projection chambers at the China Jin-Ping underground Laboratory. The tracking feature of gaseous detectors helps suppress the background level, resulting in the improvement of the detection sensitivity. We study a method based on the convolutional neural networks to discriminate double beta decay signals against the background from high energy gammas generated by ${}^{214}Bi$ and ${}^{208}Tl$ decays based on detailed Monte Carlo simulation. Using the 2-dimensional projections of recorded tracks on two planes, the method successfully suppresses the background level by a factor larger than 100 with a high signal efficiency. An improvement of 62% on the efficiency ratio of $\epsilon_{s}/\sqrt{\epsilon_{b}}$ is achieved in comparison with the baseline in the PandaX-III conceptual design report.

We report the design, construction, and initial commissioning results of a large high pressure gaseous Time Projection Chamber (TPC) with Micromegas modules for charge readout. The detector vessel has an inner volume of about 600 L and an active volume of 270 L. At 10 bar operating pressure, the active volume contains about 20 kg of xenon gas and can image charged particle tracks. Drift electrons are collected by the charge readout plane, which accommodates a tessellation of seven Micromegas modules. Each of the Micromegas covers a square of 20 cm by 20 cm. A new type of Microbulk Micromegas is chosen for this application due to its good gain uniformity and low radioactive contamination. Initial commissioning results with 1 Micromegas module running with 1 bar argon and isobutane gas mixture and 5 bar xenon and trimethylamine (TMA) gas mixture are reported. We also recorded extended background tracks from cosmic ray events and highlighted the unique tracking feature of this gaseous TPC.

PandaX-II experiment is a dark matter direct detection experiment using about half-ton of liquid xenon as the sensitive target. The electrical pulses detected by photomultiplier tubes from scintillation photons of xenon are recorded by waveform digitizers. The data acquisition of PandaX-II relies on a trigger system that generates common trigger signals for all waveform digitizers. Previously an analog device-based trigger system was used for the data acquisition system. In this paper we present a new FPGA-based trigger system. The design of this system and trigger algorithms are described. The performance of this system on real data is presented.

We describe the electronics and data acquisition system used in the first phase of the PandaX experiment—a 120 kg dual-phase liquid xenon dark matter direct detection experiment in the China Jin-Ping Underground Laboratory. This system utilized 180 channels of commercial flash ADC waveform digitizers. During the entire experimental run, the system has achieved low trigger threshold (<1 keV electron-equivalent energy) and low deadtime data acquisition.

We report the long term performance of the photosensors, 143 one-inch R8520-406 and 37 three-inch R11410-MOD photomultipliers from Hamamatsu, in the first phase of the PandaX dual-phase xenon dark matter experiment. This is the first time that a significant number of R11410 photomultiplier tubes were operated in liquid xenon for an extended period, providing important guidance to the future large xenon-based dark matter experiments.

PandaX is a large liquid-xenon detector experiment usable for direct dark-matter detection and ${}^{136}Xe$ double-beta decay search. The central vessel was designed to accommodate a staged target volume increase from initially 120 kg (stage I) to 0.5 t (stage II) and eventually to a multi-ton scale. The experiment is located in the Jinping Deep-Underground Laboratory in Sichuan, China. The detector operates in dual-phase mode, allowing detection of both prompt scintillation, and ionization charge through proportional scintillation. In this paper a detailed description of the stage I detector design and performance as well as results established during the commissioning phase are presented.

The two-phase xenon detector is at the frontier of dark matter direct search. This kind of detector uses liquid xenon as the sensitive target and is operated in two-phase (liquid/gas) mode, where the liquid level needs to be monitored and controlled in sub-millimeter precision. In this paper, we present a detailed design and study of two kinds of level meters for the PandaX dark matter detector. The long level meter is used to monitor the overall liquid level while short level meters are used to monitor the inclination of the detector. These level meters are cylindrical capacitors that are custom-made from two concentric metal tubes. Their capacitance values are read out by a universal transducer interface chip and are recorded by the PandaX slow control system. We present the developments that lead to level meters with long-term stability and sub-millimeter precision. Fluctuations (standard deviations) of less than 0.02 mm for the short level meters and less than 0.2 mm for the long level meter were achieved during a few days of test operation.

Panda-X is a liquid xenon dual-phase detector for the Dark Matter Search. The first modestly-sized module will soon be installed in the China JinPing Deep Underground Laboratory in Sichuan province, P.R. China. The cryogenic system is designed to handle much larger detectors, even the final version in the ton scale. Special attention has been paid to the reliability, serviceability, and adaptability to the requirements of a growing experiment. The system is cooled by a single Iwatani PC150 Pulse Tube Refrigerator. After subtracting all thermal losses, the remaining cooling power is still 82 W. The fill speed was 0.75 g/s, but could be boosted by $LN_{2}$ assisted cooling to 3.3 g/s. For the continuous recirculation and purification through a hot getter, a heat exchanger was employed to reduce the required cooling power. The recirculation speed is limited to 2.9 g/s by the gas pump. At this speed, recirculation only adds 18.5 W to the heat load of the system, corresponding to a 95.2 % efficiency of the heat exchanger.