Enhancing the light yield of He:CF $$_4$$ 4 based gaseous detector

• Published in: The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields Vol. 84; no. 10; pp. 1 - 21
• Main Authors: Fernando Domingues Amaro, Rita Antonietti, Elisabetta Baracchini, Luigi Benussi, Stefano Bianco, Roberto Campagnola, Cesidio Capoccia, Michele Caponero, Danilo Santos Cardoso, Luan Gomes Mattosinhos de Carvalho, Gianluca Cavoto, Igor Abritta Costa, Antonio Croce, Emiliano Dané, Giorgio Dho, Flaminia Di Giambattista, Emanuele Di Marco, Melba D’Astolfo, Giulia D’Imperio, Davide Fiorina, Francesco Iacoangeli, Zahoor ul Islam, Herman Pessoa Lima Jùnior, Ernesto Kemp, Giovanni Maccarrone, Rui Daniel Passos Mano, Robert Renz Marcelo Gregorio, David José Gaspar Marques, Giovanni Mazzitelli, Alasdair Gregor McLean, Andrea Messina, Pietro Meloni, Cristina Maria Bernardes Monteiro, Rafael Antunes Nobrega, Igor Fonseca Pains, Emiliano Paoletti, Luciano Passamonti, Fabrizio Petrucci, Stefano Piacentini, Davide Piccolo, Daniele Pierluigi, Davide Pinci, Atul Prajapati, Francesco Renga, Rita Joana da Cruz Roque, Filippo Rosatelli, Alessandro Russo, Joaquim Marques Ferreira dos Santos, Giovanna Saviano, Pedro Alberto Oliveira Costa Silva, Neil John Curwen Spooner, Roberto Tesauro, Sandro Tomassini, Samuele Torelli
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: SpringerOpen 01-10-2024
• ISSN: 1434-6052
• DOI: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-024-13471-5

Abstract The CYGNO experiment aims to build a large ( $$\mathcal {O}(10)$$ O ( 10 ) m $$^3$$ 3 ) directional detector for rare event searches, such as nuclear recoils (NRs) induced by dark matter (DM), such as weakly interactive massive particles (WIMPs). The detector concept comprises a time projection chamber (TPC), filled with a He:CF $$_4$$ 4 60/40 scintillating gas mixture at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, equipped with an amplification stage made of a stack of three gas electron multipliers (GEMs) which are coupled to an optical readout. The latter consists in scientific CMOS (sCMOS) cameras and photomultipliers tubes (PMTs). The maximisation of the light yield of the amplification stage plays a major role in the determination of the energy threshold of the experiment. In this paper, we simulate the effect of the addition of a strong electric field below the last GEM plane on the GEM field structure and we experimentally test it by means of a 10 $$\times $$ × 10 cm $$^2$$ 2 readout area prototype. The experimental measurements analyse stacks of different GEMs and helium concentrations in the gas mixture combined with this extra electric field, studying their performances in terms of light yield, energy resolution and intrinsic diffusion. It is found that the use of this additional electric field permits large light yield increases without degrading intrinsic characteristics of the amplification stage with respect to the regular use of GEMs.