We study the performance of the triple-GEM (Gas Electron Multiplier) detector
in pure noble gases Ne, Ar and Xe, at different pressures varying from 1 to 10
atm. In Ar and Xe, the maximum attainable gain of the detector abruptly drops
down for pressures exceeding 3 atm. In contrast, the maximum gain in Ne was
found to increase with pressure, reaching a value of 100,000 at 7 atm. The
results obtained are of particular interest for developing noble gas-based
cryogenic particle detectors for solar neutrino and dark matter search.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures. Submitted to Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A as a letter
to the Edito