Eur. Phys. J. A (2019) 55: 176
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2019-12867-2

Special Article - New Tools and Techniques

Triplet lifetime in gaseous argon

¹ Bennington College, 05201, Bennington, VT, USA
² Department of Physics, Boston University, 02215, Boston, MA, USA
³ Department of Physics, Brandeis University, 02453, Waltham, MA, USA
⁴ Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 94720, Berkeley, CA, USA
⁵ Los Alamos National Laboratory, 87545, Los Alamos, NM, USA
⁶ Laboratory for Nuclear Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 02139, Cambridge, MA, USA
⁷ Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 99352, Richland, WA, USA
⁸ Department of Physics, Royal Holloway, University of London, TW20 0EX, Egham, UK
⁹ SNOLAB Institute, P3Y 1N2, Lively, ON, Canada
¹⁰ Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, 94720, Berkeley, CA, USA
¹¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of New Mexico, 87131, Albuquerque, NM, USA
¹² Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of North Carolina, 27599, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
¹³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, 19104, Philadelphia, PA, USA
¹⁴ Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 53706, Madison, WI, USA
¹⁵ Department of Physics, Yale University, 06511, New Haven, CT, USA

^* e-mail: wangbtc@gmail.com

Received: 15 March 2019
Accepted: 24 August 2019
Published online: 16 October 2019

Abstract

MiniCLEAN is a single-phase liquid argon dark matter experiment. During the initial cooling phase, impurities within the cold gas ( K) were monitored by measuring the scintillation light triplet lifetime, and ultimately a triplet lifetime of μs was obtained, indicating ultra-pure argon. This is the longest argon triplet time constant ever reported. The effect of quenching of separate components of the scintillation light is also investigated.