Abstract
The MODULAr project foresees the exploitation of a new liquid Argon imaging detector, of at least 20 kt fiducial mass, to be operated in a shallow depth location under the Gran Sasso Mountain. It will be devoted to study neutrino oscillations with an optimized off-axis CNGS neutrino beam. Cosmic neutrinos as well as proton decay will also be addressed. The MODULAr detector will vastly inherit from the technology developed for ICARUS-T600. However, such an increase in the volume over the current ICARUS-T600 needs to be carefully considered. It is concluded that a single, huge volume is an inoperable and uneconomical solution for many reasons. A very large mass is best realized with a modular set of many identical, independent units, each of about 5 kt, ``cloning'' the basic technology of the ICARUS-T600. Several of such modular units will be assembled to reach at least 20 kt as initial sensitive volume. The increase of the active volume of about one order of magnitude with respect to the ICARUS-T600 detector requires some specific R&D activity, which will be implemented in a ∼ 360 ton prototype unit (SLICE) of reduced length.
Highlights
The feasibility of the technology has been demonstrated by the ICARUS collaboration with an extensive R&D programme during more than two decades [2]
Already in 2002, immediately after the successful operation of the ICARUS-T600, the Collaboration started to investigate even larger detectors in order to extend the physics results to even much larger masses [5]. The design of these developments is primarily motivated by the necessity of new detectors to complete the study of neutrino oscillations with beam and cosmic ray neutrinos, supernova explosions and the search for proton decay, especially in the exotic channels predicted by the SUSY theories
It is remarked that the presently described MODULAr detector [8] may be progressively expanded in order to reach eventually a sensitive mass which is comparable to the ones of the other “ultimate” detectors
Summary
The most naïve design would assume a single LAr container of a huge size. But already in the case of containers of few thousand tons the geometrical dimensions of most types of events under study (beam-ν, cosmic ray-ν, proton decays) are relatively confined, i.e. much smaller than the fiducial volume. We have chosen to use a modular approach of sufficient size in order to reduce the effects due to the non-uniformity of the electron collection generated by the emergence of negative ions, which impose a reasonably short maximum drift distance of each gap As it will be discussed further on, it has been assumed that a reasonable sensitive volume should be of 8 × 8 m2 cross section and a length of about 60 m, corresponding to 3840 m3 of liquid or 5370 t of LAr. Two sets of readout chambers, placed at sides, and a central high voltage cathode are arranged in a double gap configuration with a drift length of 4 m. Like in the case of ICARUS-T600, a number of photomultipliers, with a thin layer of wave-length shifter (Tetra-Phenyl-Butadiene, TPB) deposited on the photocathode, will collect the light and extract a prompt signal for trigger and timing purposes
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
