Search Menu
DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
Search Scholarly Publications

Title: A neutron-gamma pulse shape discrimination method based on pure and mixed sources

Abstract

We present a novel trainable approach to distinguish neutrons from gammas using a particle detector. Traditionally, Pulse Shape Discrimination (PSD) methods for this problem utilize an ad-hoc computation of tail signal energy to perform the detection. Our first contribution is a rigorous analysis of the performance of this existing approach on gold standard Time of Flight (TOF) data. While this approach performs well for high energy pulses, its accuracy drops dramatically as the pulse energy decreases. Our second contribution is a novel data driven classifier that is trained from two readily available sources: one that emits gamma particles (Cs-137), and another that emits a mixture of gamma and neutron particles (Cf-252). We test our approach using TOF experiments and show a marked improvement in accuracy over the traditional method for low false positive rates and low energies.

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
OSTI Identifier:
1597221
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1547938
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-756107
Journal ID: ISSN 0168-9002; 943293; TRN: US2103051
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC52-07NA27344
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research. Section A, Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 919; Journal Issue: C; Journal ID: ISSN 0168-9002
Publisher:
Elsevier
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; Engineering - Electronic and electrical engineering; Nuclear science and engineering; Engineering; Mathematics and Computing; Chemistry - Radiation chemistry; radiochemistry; and nuclear chemistry; Computer science

Citation Formats

Kaplan, A. D., Blair, B. S., Ruz, J., Glenn, A. M., Chen, C. D., and Wurtz, R. A neutron-gamma pulse shape discrimination method based on pure and mixed sources. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1016/j.nima.2018.11.136.
Copy to clipboard
Kaplan, A. D., Blair, B. S., Ruz, J., Glenn, A. M., Chen, C. D., & Wurtz, R. A neutron-gamma pulse shape discrimination method based on pure and mixed sources. United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2018.11.136
Copy to clipboard
Kaplan, A. D., Blair, B. S., Ruz, J., Glenn, A. M., Chen, C. D., and Wurtz, R. Fri . "A neutron-gamma pulse shape discrimination method based on pure and mixed sources". United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2018.11.136. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1597221.
Copy to clipboard
@article{osti_1597221,
title = {A neutron-gamma pulse shape discrimination method based on pure and mixed sources},
author = {Kaplan, A. D. and Blair, B. S. and Ruz, J. and Glenn, A. M. and Chen, C. D. and Wurtz, R.},
abstractNote = {We present a novel trainable approach to distinguish neutrons from gammas using a particle detector. Traditionally, Pulse Shape Discrimination (PSD) methods for this problem utilize an ad-hoc computation of tail signal energy to perform the detection. Our first contribution is a rigorous analysis of the performance of this existing approach on gold standard Time of Flight (TOF) data. While this approach performs well for high energy pulses, its accuracy drops dramatically as the pulse energy decreases. Our second contribution is a novel data driven classifier that is trained from two readily available sources: one that emits gamma particles (Cs-137), and another that emits a mixture of gamma and neutron particles (Cf-252). We test our approach using TOF experiments and show a marked improvement in accuracy over the traditional method for low false positive rates and low energies.},
doi = {10.1016/j.nima.2018.11.136},
journal = {Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research. Section A, Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment},
number = C,
volume = 919,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Mar 01 00:00:00 EST 2019},
month = {Fri Mar 01 00:00:00 EST 2019}
}
Copy to clipboard
Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2018.11.136
Copyright Statement
Other availability
Search WorldCat Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 8 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science
Save / Share:
Export Metadata
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.

Works referenced in this record:

Neutron detection in a high gamma-ray background with EJ-301 and EJ-309 liquid scintillators
journal, October 2012

  • Stevanato, L.; Cester, D.; Nebbia, G.
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 690
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2012.06.047

Pulse Shape Discrimination - A Survey of Current Teniques
journal, June 1962

Digital pulse-shape discrimination of fast neutrons and rays
journal, August 2008

  • Söderström, P.-A.; Nyberg, J.; Wolters, R.
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 594, Issue 1, p. 79-89
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2008.06.004

A comparison of four different digital algorithms for pulse-shape discrimination in fast scintillators
journal, June 2011

  • Gamage, K. A. A.; Joyce, M. J.; Hawkes, N. P.
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 642, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2011.03.065

Neutron–gamma discrimination based on the support vector machine method
journal, March 2015

  • Yu, Xunzhen; Zhu, Jingjun; Lin, ShinTed
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 777
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2014.12.087

Principal Component Analysis for pulse-shape discrimination of scintillation radiation detectors
journal, January 2016

  • Alharbi, T.
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 806
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2015.10.030

Pulse shape discrimination in inorganic and organic scintillators. I
journal, August 1971

  • Winyard, R. A.; Lutkin, J. E.; McBeth, G. W.
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods, Vol. 95, Issue 1, p. 141-153
  • DOI: 10.1016/0029-554X(71)90054-1

Assessing and minimizing contamination in time of flight basedvalidation data
journal, October 2017

  • Lennox, Kristin P.; Rosenfield, Paul; Blair, Brenton
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 870
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2017.04.022

The expectation-maximization algorithm
journal, January 1996

  • Moon, T. K.
  • IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, Vol. 13, Issue 6
  • DOI: 10.1109/79.543975

Schwarz, Wallace, and Rissanen: Intertwining Themes in Theories of Model Selection
journal, August 2001

    Sort by:
    [ × clear filter / sort ]

    Similar Records in DOE PAGES and OSTI.GOV collections: