P. Knauss | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

Estimating cosmogenic backgrounds in nEXO at SNOLAB using Geant4 and FLUKA

The nEXO experiment was designed to search for neutrinoless double beta decay in the isotope $^{136}$Xe, using a five-tonne, isotopically-enriched liquid xenon time projection chamber (TPC). To meet nEXO's sensitivity goal, significant effort is placed on background mitigation strategies. Here, we evaluate the expected cosmogenic background rate for nEXO if placed at its preferred underground host site, SNOLAB. A comparison of results from Geant4 and FLUKA Monte Carlo simulations are presented. We perform detailed Monte Carlo simulations of muons reaching the underground SNOLAB environment using both Geant4 and FLUKA to study the production of radioactive isotopes from both direct spallation reactions or subsequent neutron-induced reactions. We find that, of the isotopes produced, the only one of concern for nEXO is $^{137}$Xe, produced by neutron capture on the xenon target. We develop a veto strategy that achieves an anticipated 92\% \xe{137} rejection efficiency while keeping dead time to less than 1 day over a 10 year exposure.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2026

Characterization of CRYO ASIC for charge readout in the nEXO experiment

nEXO is a proposed next-generation experiment searching for the neutrinoless double beta decay of $^{136}$Xe using a tonne-scale liquid xenon (LXe) time projection chamber (TPC). To image the ionization signals from events in the liquid xenon, the detector will employ metallized fused-silica charge collection tiles instrumented with cryogenic application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), referred to as CRYO ASIC, which are designed to operate directly in LXe to minimize input capacitance and pick-up noise. Here we present the performance of the CRYO ASIC mounted on an auxiliary printed circuit board and evaluated both in a cryogenic environmental chamber and in a dedicated LXe test stand. We demonstrate that the ASICs achieve the desired performance at liquid xenon temperatures, showing a gain stability better than 0.2% over 24-hour operation and reliable in-situ calibration using an on-chip pulser. In the LXe test stand, we show that boiling caused by the chip heat dissipation can be mitigated by operating the system above ~0.1 MPa. The in-LXe noise measured agrees with simulation, which indicates it the $150~e^-$ design requirement can be satisfied. These results establish CRYO ASIC as a viable low-noise in-LXe charge readout solution for nEXO.

physics.ins-det↗