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arXiv · 2006.09311

Internal Calibration of the PandaX-II Detector with Radon Gaseous Sources

Abstract

We have developed a low-energy electron recoil (ER) calibration method with $^{220}$Rn for the PandaX-II detector. $^{220}$Rn, emanated from natural thorium compounds, was fed into the detector through the xenon purification system. From 2017 to 2019, we performed three dedicated calibration campaigns with different radon sources. We studied the detector response to $\alpha$, $\beta$, and $\gamma$ particles with focus on low energy ER events. During the runs in 2017 and 2018, the amount of radioactivity of $^{222}$Rn were on the order of 1\% of that of $^{220}$Rn and thorium particulate contamination was negligible, especially in 2018. We also measured the background contribution from $^{214}$Pb for the first time in PandaX-II with the help from a $^{222}$Rn injection. Calibration strategy with $^{220}$Rn and $^{222}$Rn will be implemented in the upcoming PandaX-4T experiment and can be useful for other xenon-based detectors as well.

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Wenbo Ma, Abdusalam Abdukerim, Zihao Bo, Wei Chen, Xun Chen, Yunhua Chen, Chen Cheng, Xiangyi Cui, Yingjie Fan, Deqing Fang, Changbo Fu, Mengting Fu, Lisheng Geng, Karl Giboni, Linhui Gu, Xuyuan Guo, Ke Han, Changda He, Shengming He, Di Huang, Yan Huang, Yanlin Huang, Zhou Huang, Xiangdong Ji, Yonglin Ju, Shuaijie Li, Huaxuan Liu, Jianglai Liu, Yugang Ma, Yajun Mao, Yue Meng, Kaixiang Ni, Jinhua Ning, Xuyang Ning, Xiangxiang Ren, Changsong Shang, Lin Si, Guofang Shen, Andi Tan, Anqing Wang, Hongwei Wang, Meng Wang, Qiuhong Wang, Siguang Wang, Wei Wang, Xiuli Wang, Zhou Wang, Mengmeng Wu, Shiyong Wu, Weihao Wu, Jingkai Xia, Mengjiao Xiao, Pengwei Xie, Binbin Yan, Jijun Yang, Yong Yang, Chunxu Yu, Jumin Yuan, Ying Yuan, Jianfeng Yue, Xinning Zeng, Dan Zhang, Tao Zhang, Li Zhao, Qibin Zheng, Jifang Zhou, Ning Zhou, Xiaopeng Zhou. 2020-06-16. Internal Calibration of the PandaX-II Detector with Radon Gaseous Sources. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/15/12/p12038

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