Future liquid Argon detectors

Abstract

The Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber offers an innovative technology for a new class of massive detectors for rare-event detection. It is a precise tracking device that allows three-dimensional spatial reconstruction with mm-scale precision of the morphology of ionizing tracks with the imaging quality of a "bubble chamber", provides $dE/dx$ information with high sampling rate, and acts as high-resolution calorimeter for contained events. First proposed in 1977 and after a long maturing process, its holds today the potentialities of opening new physics opportunities by providing excellent tracking and calorimetry performance at the relevant multi-kton mass scales, outperforming other techniques. In this paper, we review future liquid argon detectors presently being discussed by the neutrino physics community.

Comments: 8 pages, XXV International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics (Neutrino 2012), Kyoto, Japan, to appear in Nuclear Physics B: Proceedings Supplements