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Title: Quenching measurements and modeling of a boron-loaded organic liquid scintillator

Abstract

Organic liquid scintillators are used in a wide variety of applications in experimental nuclear and particle physics. Boron-loaded scintillators are particularly useful for detecting neutron captures, due to the high thermal neutron capture cross section of $$^{10}$$B. These scintillators are commonly used in neutron detectors, including the DarkSide-50 neutron veto, where the neutron may produce a signal when it scatters off protons in the scintillator or when it captures on $$^{10}$$B. Reconstructing the energy of these recoils is complicated by scintillation quenching. Understanding how nuclear recoils are quenched in these scintillators is an important and difficult problem. In this article, we present a set of measurements of neutron-induced proton recoils in a boron-loaded organic liquid scintillator at recoil energies ranging from 57--467 keV, and we compare these measurements to predictions from different quenching models. We find that a modified Birks' model whose denominator is quadratic in $dE/dx$ best describes the measurements, with $$\chi^2$$/NDF$=1.6$. This result will help model nuclear recoil scintillation in similar detectors and can be used to improve their neutron tagging efficiency.

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [3];  [5];  [6];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [6];  [6];  [9];  [9];  [6]
  1. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Department of Physics; Carleton Univ., Ottawa, ON (Canada). Department of Physics
  2. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Department of Physics; Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  3. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Department of Physics
  4. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Department of Physics; Imperial College, London (United Kingdom). Department of High Energy Physics, Blackett Laboratory
  5. Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
  6. Univ. of Notre Dame, IN (United States). Department of Physics
  7. Univ. of Notre Dame, IN (United States). Department of Physics; Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai (China). Sino-French Institute of Nuclear Engineering and Technology
  8. Univ. of Notre Dame, IN (United States). Department of Physics; Nuclear Physics Division, BARC, Mumbai (India)
  9. Univ. of Notre Dame, IN (United States). Department of Physics; Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI (United States). National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
OSTI Identifier:
1426120
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1355923
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-738009; FERMILAB-PUB-17-126-AE; arXiv:1703.07214
Journal ID: ISSN 1748-0221; TRN: US1802223
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC52-07NA27344; AC02-07CH11359
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Journal of Instrumentation
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 12; Journal Issue: 8; Journal ID: ISSN 1748-0221
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS; 46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; 72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS

Citation Formats

Westerdale, S., Xu, J., Shields, E., Froborg, F., Calaprice, F., Alexander, T., Aprahamian, A., Back, H. O., Casarella, C., Fang, X., Gupta, Y. K., Lamere, E., Liu, Q., Lyons, S., Smith, M., and Tan, W. Quenching measurements and modeling of a boron-loaded organic liquid scintillator. United States: N. p., 2017. Web. doi:10.1088/1748-0221/12/08/P08002.
Westerdale, S., Xu, J., Shields, E., Froborg, F., Calaprice, F., Alexander, T., Aprahamian, A., Back, H. O., Casarella, C., Fang, X., Gupta, Y. K., Lamere, E., Liu, Q., Lyons, S., Smith, M., & Tan, W. Quenching measurements and modeling of a boron-loaded organic liquid scintillator. United States. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/12/08/P08002
Westerdale, S., Xu, J., Shields, E., Froborg, F., Calaprice, F., Alexander, T., Aprahamian, A., Back, H. O., Casarella, C., Fang, X., Gupta, Y. K., Lamere, E., Liu, Q., Lyons, S., Smith, M., and Tan, W. 2017. "Quenching measurements and modeling of a boron-loaded organic liquid scintillator". United States. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/12/08/P08002. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1426120.
@article{osti_1426120,
title = {Quenching measurements and modeling of a boron-loaded organic liquid scintillator},
author = {Westerdale, S. and Xu, J. and Shields, E. and Froborg, F. and Calaprice, F. and Alexander, T. and Aprahamian, A. and Back, H. O. and Casarella, C. and Fang, X. and Gupta, Y. K. and Lamere, E. and Liu, Q. and Lyons, S. and Smith, M. and Tan, W.},
abstractNote = {Organic liquid scintillators are used in a wide variety of applications in experimental nuclear and particle physics. Boron-loaded scintillators are particularly useful for detecting neutron captures, due to the high thermal neutron capture cross section of $^{10}$B. These scintillators are commonly used in neutron detectors, including the DarkSide-50 neutron veto, where the neutron may produce a signal when it scatters off protons in the scintillator or when it captures on $^{10}$B. Reconstructing the energy of these recoils is complicated by scintillation quenching. Understanding how nuclear recoils are quenched in these scintillators is an important and difficult problem. In this article, we present a set of measurements of neutron-induced proton recoils in a boron-loaded organic liquid scintillator at recoil energies ranging from 57--467 keV, and we compare these measurements to predictions from different quenching models. We find that a modified Birks' model whose denominator is quadratic in $dE/dx$ best describes the measurements, with $\chi^2$/NDF$=1.6$. This result will help model nuclear recoil scintillation in similar detectors and can be used to improve their neutron tagging efficiency.},
doi = {10.1088/1748-0221/12/08/P08002},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1426120}, journal = {Journal of Instrumentation},
issn = {1748-0221},
number = 8,
volume = 12,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Aug 03 00:00:00 EDT 2017},
month = {Thu Aug 03 00:00:00 EDT 2017}
}

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