In-situ calibration of the single-photoelectron charge response of the IceCube photomultiplier tubes

• Published in: Journal of instrumentation Vol. 15; no. 6; p. P06032
• Main Authors: Aartsen, M.G., Ackermann, M., Adams, J., Aguilar, J.A., Ahlers, M., Ahrens, M., Alispach, C., Andeen, K., Anderson, T., Ansseau, I., Anton, G., Argüelles, C., Auffenberg, J., Axani, S., Backes, P., Bagherpour, H., Bai, X., V., A. Balagopal, Barbano, A., Barwick, S.W., Bastian, B., Baum, V., Baur, S., Bay, R., Beatty, J.J., Becker, K.-H., Tjus, J. Becker, BenZvi, S., Berley, D., Bernardini, E., Besson, D.Z., Binder, G., Bindig, D., Blaufuss, E., Blot, S., Bohm, C., Börner, M., Böser, S., Botner, O., Böttcher, J., Bourbeau, E., Bourbeau, J., Bradascio, F., Braun, J., Bron, S., Brostean-Kaiser, J., Burgman, A., Buscher, J., Busse, R.S., Carver, T., Chen, C., Cheung, E., Chirkin, D., Choi, S., Clark, K., Classen, L., Coleman, A., Collin, G.H., Conrad, J.M., Coppin, P., Correa, P., Cowen, D.F., Cross, R., Dave, P., Clercq, C. De, DeLaunay, J.J., Dembinski, H., Deoskar, K., Ridder, S. De, Desiati, P., de Vries, K.D., de Wasseige, G., de With, M., DeYoung, T., Diaz, A., Díaz-Vélez, J.C., Dujmovic, H., Dunkman, M., Dvorak, E., Eberhardt, B., Ehrhardt, T., Eller, P., Engel, R., Evenson, P.A., Fahey, S., Fazely, A.R., Felde, J., Filimonov, K., Finley, C., Fox, D., Franckowiak, A., Friedman, E., Fritz, A., Gaisser, T.K., Gallagher, J., Ganster, E., Garrappa, S., Gerhardt, L., Ghorbani, K., Glauch, T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 01.06.2020
• Subjects: Calibration; Charge distribution; charge transport; Computer simulation; Detector modelling and simulations II (electric fields; electron emission; etc; HPDs; Monte Carlo simulation; multiplication and induction; Neutrinos; others; Photoelectrons; Photomultiplier tubes; Photon detectors for UV; pulse formation; visible and IR photons (vacuum) (photomultipliers
• ISSN: 1748-0221; 1748-0221
• DOI: 10.1088/1748-0221/15/06/P06032

We describe an improved in-situ calibration of the single-photoelectron charge distributions for each of the in-ice Hamamatsu Photonics R7081-02[MOD] photomultiplier tubes in the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. The characterization of the individual PMT charge distributions is important for PMT calibration, data and Monte Carlo simulation agreement, and understanding the effect of hardware differences within the detector. We discuss the single photoelectron identification procedure and how we extract the single-photoelectron charge distribution using a deconvolution of the multiple-photoelectron charge distribution.