Barium Ion Extraction and Identification from Laser Induced Fluorescence in Gas for the Enriched Xenon Observatory

The scientific community is increasingly interested in neutrinoless double beta decay. A potential measurement of the decay rate would determine the neutrino mass and would be sensitive to some extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics. Unfortunately, the decay rate is very low and competes with natural and cosmogenic radioactivity. This thesis presents a technique that eliminates such background events. It is performed by observing the barium ion daughter from the double beta decay of xenon-136 using laser induced fluorescence. The technique is very complex and requires an excellent understanding of the barium ion spectroscopy and its chemistry in the vicinity of other molecules. Such a technique will become a unique advantage over other neutrinoless double beta decay experiments, especially if the neutrino mass is low.

This thesis describes three main topics. The first one describes simulations of ionizing electrons in xenon to determine the size of a gas phase detector for a neutrinoless double beta decay measurement. It has been determined that a meter size detector would contain most electron tracks. Then, it describes the design of two barium ion sources, one relying on electric discharges across two electrodes and the other one using a high energy pulsed laser. From those sources, the spectroscopy of barium ions was studied. The branching ratio of the 6²S_1/2 – —6 ²P_1/2 transition was found to be 74 ± 4%. By adding argon in the chamber, the lineshift of the transition due to collisions was found to be -132 MHz/torr while the broadening rate was 23 MHz/torr. Finally, the most interesting topic is the production of doubly charged barium ions using an electrospray source. From it, ions were extracted to vacuum in a mass spectrometer and charge conversion was achieved using triethylamine. The efficiency of the conversion of Ba⁺ to Ba ⁺⁺ was almost 100%, with a cross-section between 1.69 × 10 ^-18 m² and 2.21 × 10^-18 m ² without forming any molecules.