Innovative Cooling Solutions for Liquid Xenon Experiments

Recent advancements in thermal management technology have been reported in the paper titled "Thermal Management Design and Key Technology Validation for PandaX Underground Experiment" by Tao Zhan and colleagues. The study addresses the challenges faced by liquid xenon experiments, particularly the need for reliable cooling systems capable of supporting larger scales, potentially reaching up to fifty tons.

The authors highlight the limitations of traditional cooling methods, such as pulse tube and GM refrigerators, which are often inadequate due to their limited cooling power and spatial requirements. To overcome these issues, the team developed an auto-cascade refrigerator utilizing ethanol as a coolant. This innovative design incorporates a concentric shaft heat exchanger and an after-pumping heat transfer scheme, achieving a stable cooling power of 2.5 kW at 155 K.

Furthermore, the paper discusses the feasibility of a centralized cooling system that could provide 5 kW at 160 K. This advancement is significant as it simplifies the auxiliary devices required for liquid xenon experiments, thereby enhancing the efficiency of the PandaX-xT experiment scheme and its laboratory infrastructure design.

The findings could have broader implications for future experiments in high-energy physics, particularly those involving rare event searches, by facilitating the scaling up of detector systems without compromising cooling efficiency. The complete study can be accessed through arXiv at arXiv:2408.13433.