Measurement of electron transport in liquid argon in crossed electric and magnetic fields

Abstract

We report on a measurement of excess electron drift properties in liquid argon in the presence of crossed electric and magnetic fields. The electric field strength was varied between 6 and 110 V/cm. Using a superconducting solenoid magnetic field strengths up to 5 T were achieved. The magnetic field B/spl I.oarr/ oriented perpendicular to the electric field E/spl I.oarr/ and the components of the drift velocity /spl upsi//spl I.oarr//sub D/ parallel and perpendicular to the electric field were measured, from which were derived the drift mobility /spl mu//sub D/, Hall angle /spl theta//sub H/ and Hall mobility /spl mu//sub H/. An increase of /spl mu//sub H/ compared to /spl mu//sub D/ in the density range of the mobility maximum is observed. The ratio /spl mu//sub H///spl mu//sub D/ for B/spl rarr/0 takes a value between 2.0 and 2.5 depending on the electric field strength. The Hall angle /spl theta//sub H/ as function of the magnetic field strength deviates from a linear behavior only in the density region showing a high mobility. The results are compared with available data.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>