Demonstration of a novel, ton-scale, single-phase LArTPC with pixelated readout

The Module-0 Demonstrator is a ton-scale single-phase liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) operated as a prototype for the DUNE liquid argon near detector (ND-LAr). Based on the ArgonCube design concept, Module 0 features true 3D pixelated charge readout, an advanced high-coverage photon detection system, and a low-profile resistive-shell field cage. Here we show the analysis of a cosmic ray dataset acquired with this detector, operated at the University of Bern in the spring of 2021. We demonstrate detector capabilities including the performance of the charge and light readout systems and signal matching between the two, detector purity and response uniformity. We will also compare the data to a microphysical detector simulation, performed with highly-parallelized GPU algorithms. This successful prototype validates key aspects of the design of the liquid argon near detector (ND-LAr) for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), a future experiment that will address open issues in neutrino physics, such as the measurement of the charge-parity violating phase in neutrino oscillations and the determination of the neutrino mass ordering.