Study of secondary scintillation in xenon vapour

The use of secondary scintillation in xenon vapor to amplify the signals due to a few electrons produced in the liquid is foreseen in two phase liquid xenon detectors for the direct WIMP search. In the present work, the secondary scintillation in xenon vapor and its dependence on the electrical field were studied in a uniform field geometry with an /sup 241/Am alpha-source. The calibration in number of photons was done using the primary scintillation in room temperature gas as a reference.