No Arabic abstract
The $alpha$-particle light response of liquid scintillators based on linear alkylbenzene (LAB) has been measured with three different experimental approaches. In the first approach, $alpha$-particles were produced in the scintillator via $^{12}$C($n$,$alpha$)$^9$Be reactions. In the second approach, the scintillator was loaded with 2% of $^{mathrm{nat}}$Sm providing an $alpha$-emitter, $^{147}$Sm, as an internal source. In the third approach, a scintillator flask was deployed into the water-filled SNO+ detector and the radioactive contaminants $^{222}$Rn, $^{218}$Po and $^{214}$Po provided the $alpha$-particle signal. The behavior of the observed $alpha$-particle light outputs are in agreement with each case successfully described by Birks law. The resulting Birks parameter $kB$ ranges from $(0.0066pm0.0016)$ cm/MeV to $(0.0076pm0.0003)$ cm/MeV. In the first approach, the $alpha$-particle light response was measured simultaneously with the light response of recoil protons produced via neutron-proton elastic scattering. This enabled a first time a direct comparison of $kB$ describing the proton and the $alpha$-particle response of LAB based scintillator. The observed $kB$ values describing the two light response functions deviate by more than $5sigma$. The presented results are valuable for all current and future detectors, using LAB based scintillator as target, since they depend on an accurate knowledge of the scintillator response to different particles.
Linear alkylbenzene has been recently used as the solvent of liquid scintillator by several neutrino experiments. The energy quenching effect of a linear alkylbenzene based liquid scintillator is studied in this paper with a 14 MeV D-T compact neutron generator, to improve the energy non-linearity modelling of this kind of detectors. The recoiled proton in the liquid scintillator has a kinetic energy ranging from 0.5 MeV to 13 MeV. The data is used to extract the parameters of the Birks law, an empirical model to describe the energy quenching effect of the liquid scintillator.
We have studied channeling effects in a Cesium Iodide (CsI) crystal that is similar in composition to the ones being used in a search for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) dark matter candidates, and measured its energy-dependent quenching factor, the relative scintillation yield for electron and nuclear recoils. The experimental results are reproduced with a GEANT4 simulation that includes a model of the scintillation efficiency as a function of electronic stopping power. We present the measured and simulated quenching factors and the estimated effects of channeling.
A large-scale neutrino observatory based on Water-based Liquid Scintillator (WbLS) will be excellently suited for a measurement of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background (DSNB). The WbLS technique offers high signal efficiency and effective suppression of the otherwise overwhelming background from neutral-current interactions of atmospheric neutrinos. To illustrate this, we investigate the DSNB sensitivity for two configurations of the future Theia detector by developing the expected signal and background rejection efficiencies along a full analysis chain. Based on a statistical analysis of the remaining signal and background rates, we find that a rather moderate exposure of 190kt$cdot$yrs will be sufficient to claim a ($5sigma$) discovery of the faint DSNB signal for standard model assumptions. We conclude that, in comparison with other experimental techniques, WbLS offers the highest signal efficiency of more than 80% and best signal significance over background.
The detectors based on the liquid scintillator (LS) monitored by an array of photo-multiplier tubes (PMT) are often used in low energy experiments such as neutrino oscillation studies and search for dark matter. Detectors of this kind operate in an energy range spanning from hundreds of keV to a few GeV providing a few percent resolution at energies above 1 MeV and allowing to observe fine spectral features. This article gives a brief overview of relevant physical processes and introduces a new universal simulation tool LSMC (Liquid Scintillator Monte Carlo) for simulation of LS-based detectors equipped with PMT arrays. This tool is based on the Geant4 framework and provides supplementing functionality for ease of configuration and comprehensive output. The usage of LSMC is illustrated by modeling and optimization of a compact detector prototype currently being built at Baksan Neutrino Observatory.
MeV-GeV dark matter (DM) is theoretically well motivated but remarkably unexplored. This Letter of Intent presents the MeV-GeV DM discovery potential for a 1 m$^3$ segmented plastic scintillator detector placed downstream of the beam-dump at one of the high intensity JLab experimental Halls, receiving up to 10$^{22}$ electrons-on-target (EOT) in a one-year period. This experiment (Beam-Dump eXperiment or BDX) is sensitive to DM-nucleon elastic scattering at the level of a thousand counts per year, with very low threshold recoil energies ($sim$1 MeV), and limited only by reducible cosmogenic backgrounds. Sensitivity to DM-electron elastic scattering and/or inelastic DM would be below 10 counts per year after requiring all electromagnetic showers in the detector to exceed a few-hundred MeV, which dramatically reduces or altogether eliminates all backgrounds. Detailed Monte Carlo simulations are in progress to finalize the detector design and experimental set up. An existing 0.036 m$^3$ prototype based on the same technology will be used to validate simulations with background rate estimates, driving the necessary R$&$D towards an optimized detector. The final detector design and experimental set up will be presented in a full proposal to be submitted to the next JLab PAC. A fully realized experiment would be sensitive to large regions of DM parameter space, exceeding the discovery potential of existing and planned experiments by two orders of magnitude in the MeV-GeV DM mass range.