Calibration and characterization of the IceCube photomultiplier tube

By T. I. C. R. Abbasi, Y. Abdou, T. Abu-Zayyad, J. Adams, J. Aguilar, M. Ahlers, K. Andeen, J. Auffenberg, X. Bai, M. Baker and 248 more. 2010

296 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Over 5000 PMTs are being deployed at the South Pole to compose the IceCube neutrino observatory. Many are placed deep in the ice to detect Cherenkov light emitted by the products of high-energy neutrino interactions, and others are frozen into tanks on the surface to detect particles from atmospheric cosmic ray showers. IceCube is using the 10-in. diameter R7081-02 made by Hamamatsu Photonics. This paper describes the laboratory characterization and calibration of these PMTs before deployment. PMTs were illuminated with pulses ranging from single photons to saturation level. Parameterizations are given for the single photoelectron charge spectrum and the saturation behavior. Time resolution, late pulses and afterpulses are characterized. Because the PMTs are relatively large, the cathode sensitivity uniformity was measured. The absolute photon detection efficiency was calibrated using Rayleigh-scattered photons from a nitrogen laser. Measured characteristics are discussed in the context of their relevance to IceCube event reconstruction and simulation efforts.

Subfields: Nuclear and High Energy Physics, Radiation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/893683b20f4e96e02fac4bb3760e930a78a25b63

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In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

Citations in the corpus

Measurement of South Pole ice transparency with the IceCube LED calibration system (2013, methodology): “c shifts in the obtained eﬀective scattering and absorption coeﬃcients of roughly 6.5%. Several pulse extraction methods, with and without correcting for PMT saturation (using the saturation model of [6]), were tested for extracting photon hits from the ﬂasher data, and the ice 19 properties were re”
The IceCube Realtime Alert System (2016, unknown): “The IceCube data acquisition (DAQ) system is responsible for managing communication with and control of all deployed DOMs [20, 21].”
OBSERVATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF A COSMIC MUON NEUTRINO FLUX FROM THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE USING SIX YEARS OF ICECUBE DATA (2016, background): “A total of 5160 optical photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) instrument 86 cable strings with a vertical spacing of 17 m at depths between 1450 and 2450m beneath the surface of the glacial ice sheet (Abbasi et al. 2010).”
A COMBINED MAXIMUM-LIKELIHOOD ANALYSIS OF THE HIGH-ENERGY ASTROPHYSICAL NEUTRINO FLUX MEASURED WITH ICECUBE (2015, background): “Each optical module is a spherical glass housing that contains a 10′′-photomultiplier (Abbasi et al. 2010), together with digitization electronics (Abbasi et al. 2009).”
Extending the Search for Muon Neutrinos Coincident with Gamma-Ray Bursts in IceCube Data (2017, background): “Each DOM consists of a photomultiplier tube (PMT) within a glass pressure sphere that detects the Cherenkov radiation of neutrino interaction products(Abbasi et al. 2010a).”
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory: Instrumentation and Online Systems (2016, methodology): “It consists of a spherical glass housing containing a downward-facing 10 ′′-diameter PMT [26] and associated circuit boards that allow near-autonomous operation (figure 3).”
SEARCH FOR PROMPT NEUTRINO EMISSION FROM GAMMA-RAY BURSTS WITH ICECUBE (2014, methodology): “Photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) in the DOMs detect Cherenkov light emitted by energetic charged particles produced in neutrino–nucleon interactions in the ice.”
IceCube sensitivity for low-energy neutrinos from nearby supernovae (2011, methodology): “It contains a Hamamatsu R7081-02 (R7081-MOD in case of DeepCore) 10" (25.4cm) hemispherical photomultiplier tube (Abbasi et al., 2010) as well as several electronics boards containing a processor, memory, flash file system and realtime operating system that allows each DOM to operate as a complete…”
The design and performance of IceCube DeepCore (2011, methodology): “This wavelength is also near the peak of the DOM sensitivity [12].”
All-sky Search for Time-integrated Neutrino Emission from Astrophysical Sources with 7 yr of IceCube Data (2016, methodology): “The DOMs consist of a photomultiplier tube, electronics for digitization, and LEDs for detector calibration (Abbasi et al. 2009, 2010).”
Searches for Extended and Point-like Neutrino Sources with Four Years of IceCube Data (2014, background): “Each PMT is housed in a digital optical module (DOM), consisting of a pressure-resistant sphere with on board digitization and calibration LEDs (light-emitting diodes; Abbasi et al. 2010).”