The impact of multiple-site interactions on the energy resolution of a high-pressure xenon γ-ray spectrometer

High-pressure xenon (HPXe) ionization chambers have generated interest as a radiation detection medium for purposes requiring good energy resolution, high detection efficiency, and uniform response over a broad temperature range, such as homeland security and well logging applications. However, these chambers generally exhibit a substantial degradation of the measured energy resolution relative to theoretical limits. This investigation studies the impact of the number of interaction sites in an event sequence on the measured energy resolution using a benchmarked simulation package. The prominence of single and multiple-site interactions is investigated in addition to the photopeak broadening due to each event class. A radial position-sensing technique developed for coplanar-anode HPXe chambers is shown to have benefit for only single-site events.