Fluctuation in energy-loss measurements in allene-doped liquid argon for heavy ions

Liquid argon (LAr) has suitable properties for use as a particle-detector medium, however, its response to heavy ions is not linear, because of the non-perfect collection of charge produced by the incident ions due to the strong recombination between the liberated electrons and argon ions. We were able to improve the linearity of the response by doping photoionization materials, such as allene (C₃H₄), to LAr. Using allene-doped LAr, we made some experiments of the heavy ion calorimeters for the mass identification of relativistic iron ions, but this approach was unsuccessful. We therefore investigated the cause of the failure using relativistic heavy ions of neon, argon and iron. The energy resolutions obtained experimentally were of the order of several percent at the full width at half maximum (FWHM) for neon to iron ions passing through a LAr gap of 10 mm. These values were 2 or 3 times worse than those predicted theoretically, and the poor energy resolution led to insufficient mass resolution. Here, we describe methods for measuring fluctuation in energy-loss signals in LAr, and discuss the factors determining the resolution.