LN2-free Operation of the MEG Liquid Xenon Calorimeter by using a High-power Pulse Tube Cryocooler

A high-power coaxial pulse tube cryocooler, originally developed in KEK and technology-transferred to Iwatani Industrial Gases Corp (IIGC), has been installed in a large liquid xenon calorimeter to evaluate liquid nitrogen-free (LN2-free) operation of the rare μ-particle decay experiment (MEG). Features of this pulse tube cryocooler include the cold-end heat exchanger, designed with sufficient surface area to ensure high-power cooling, and a cylindrical regenerator placed inside the pulse tube giving compact design and ease of fabrication. This production-level cryocooler provides a cooling power of ∼200 W at 165 K, using a 6 kW Gifford-McMahon (GM)-type compressor. The paper describes the detailed configuration of the cryocooler, and the results of the continuous LN2-free operation of the large prototype liquid xenon calorimeter, which ran for more than 40 days without problems