No abstract

We present Monte-Carlo simulations of electron transport through liquid argon motivated by our recent observation of electroluminescence light emanating from a thick gaseous electron multiplier (THGEM) in a liquid argon volume. All known elastic and inelastic reaction cross-sections have been accounted for, providing electroluminescence light yield predictions for arbitrary electrostatic fields. This study concludes that the large field gradients needed to produce electroluminescence cannot be accounted for by straightforward electrostatic field calculations based on ideal THGEM holes, suggesting that further experimental investigations are required.

A reconstruction technique for sparse array optical signal readout is introduced and applied to the generic challenge of large-area readout of a large number of point light sources. This challenge finds a prominent example in future, large volume neutrino detector studies based on liquid argon. It is concluded that the sparse array option may be ruled out for reasons of required number of channels when compared to a benchmark derived from charge readout on wire-planes. Smaller-scale detectors, however, could benefit from this technology.

By exploiting structural differences between electromagnetic and hadronic showers in a multivariate analysis we present an efficient Electron-Hadron discrimination algorithm for liquid argon time projection chambers, validated using Geant4 simulated data. *