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To study construction and operation challenges for the planned multi-tonne scale dark matter detector DARWIN, we designed and built Xenoscope, a vertical full-scale demonstrator aiming at investigating the electron transport and survival over a 2.6 m drift path and the high voltage distribution for the DARWIN time projection chamber (TPC), among others.
The first results from a several-months run with 343 kg of xenon were today published in the European Physics Journal. We deployed a 53-cm tall purity monitor immersed in the cryogenic liquid to measure the electron drift lifetime as a function of the xenon purification flow. After 88 days of continuous purification, the electron lifetime reached a value of 664 ± 23 ms. We also measured the drift velocity of electrons for electric fields in the range (25-75) V/cm, and calculated the longitudinal diffusion constant of the electron cloud in the same field range. For the next phase of the experiment, a 2.6 m TPC has been installed in Xenoscope, which in the next months will be operated in dual (gas-liquid) xenon phase mode in order to expand on these results for the entire DARWIN vertical scale.
