PandaX: A liquid xenon dark matter experiment at CJPL

Abstract

PandaX is a large liquid-xenon detector experiment usable for direct dark-matter detection and 136Xe double-beta decay search. The central vessel was designed to accommodate a staged target volume increase from initially 120 kg (stage I) to 0.5 t (stage II) and eventually to a multi-ton scale. The experiment is located in the Jinping Deep-Underground Laboratory in Sichuan, China. The detector operates in dual-phase mode, allowing detection of both prompt scintillation, and ionization charge through proportional scintillation. In this paper a detailed description of the stage I detector design and performance as well as results established during the commissioning phase are presented. © 2014 Science China Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.