Development of a liquid xenon scintillation detector for a new experiment to search for μ→eγ decays

A novel gamma-ray detector based on a liquid xenon scintillator is under development for a new experiment. to search for the lepton flavor violating process mu(+) --> e(+) gamma at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI). The experiment is designed to have a sensitivity down to 10(-14) branching ratio. We constructed a prototype detector with an active volume of 691 to demonstrate the performance of the proposed detector for high-energy gamma rays of around 50 MeV. After a test of the cryogenic system for the prototype detector, we have begun studies with the prototype using a gamma-beam up to 40 MeV from the laser Compton backscattering facility at the TERAS electron storage ring of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST). (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.