Erlangen 2026 – scientific programme

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 36: Search for Dark Matter II

T 36.9: Talk

Tuesday, March 17, 2026, 18:15–18:30, AM 00.014

Status of the MainzTPC Upgrade for Precision Low-Energy Recoil Measurements in Liquid Xenon — •Constantin Szyszka, Alexander Deisting, Christopher Hils, Peter György, Johannes Merz, and Uwe Oberlack — Institut für Physik & Exzellenzcluster PRISMA⁺, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

The MainzTPC is an experimental dual-phase xenon time projection chamber (TPC) dedicated to the study of scintillation and ionization processes in liquid xenon (LXe) for low-energy electronic and nuclear recoils. Its design has been optimized for use as the primary target in Compton and neutron scattering experiments to measure recoil energies in LXe down to 1 keV.
To improve position resolution in x and y the MainzTPC was redesigned to accommodate an array of silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) in place of its monolithic top photomultiplier tube (PMT) and eight avalanche photodiodes. The goal of this upgrade is to enable the MainzTPC to perform a measurement of the Migdal effect in LXe. For this purpose, a cryogenic amplifier board housing the SiPM array was developed. To address known instabilities in the liquid level of the MainzTPC, we rebuilt the level meters and level control based on camera observations of the liquid-gas interface. We report on the status of this work.

Keywords: Dark Matter; Xenon time projection chamber; WIMP search; Particle Detector