The fast neutron rate is measured at the site of NEOS experiment, a short baseline neutrino experiment located in a tendon gallery of a commercial nuclear power plant, using a 0.78-liter liquid scintillator detector. A pulse shape discrimination technique is used to identify neutron signals. The measurements are performed during the nuclear reactor-on and off periods and found to be ~20 per day for both periods. The fast neutron rate is also measured at an overground site with a negligible overburden and is found to be ~100 times higher than that at the NEOS experiment site.
Pulse shape discrimination plays a key role in improving the signal-to-background ratio in NEOS analysis by removing fast neutrons. Identifying particles by looking at the tail of the waveform has been an effective and plausible approach for pulse shape discrimination, but has the limitation in sorting low energy particles. As a good alternative, the convolutional neural network can scan the entire waveform as they are to recognize the characteristics of the pulse and perform shape classification of NEOS data. This network provides a powerful identification tool for all energy ranges and helps to search unprecedented phenomena of low-energy, a few MeV or less, neutrinos.
In this paper we describe the development and first tests of a neutron spectrometer designed for high flux environments, such as the ones found in fast nuclear reactors. The spectrometer is based on the conversion of neutrons impinging on $^6$Li into $alpha$ and $t$ whose total energy comprises the initial neutron energy and the reaction $Q$-value. The $^6$LiF layer is sandwiched between two CVD diamond detectors, which measure the two reaction products in coincidence. The spectrometer was calibrated at two neutron energies in well known thermal and 3 MeV neutron fluxes. The measured neutron detection efficiency varies from 4.2$times 10^{-4}$ to 3.5$times 10^{-8}$ for thermal and 3 MeV neutrons, respectively. These values are in agreement with Geant4 simulations and close to simple estimates based on the knowledge of the $^6$Li(n,$alpha$)$t$ cross section. The energy resolution of the spectrometer was found to be better than 100 keV when using 5 m cables between the detector and the preamplifiers.
This paper summarizes the results from measurements aiming to characterize ultracold neutron detection with 6Li-doped glass scintillators. Single GS10 or GS20 scintillators, with a thickness of 100-200 micrometer, fulfill the ultracold neutron detection requirements with an acceptable neutron-gamma discrimination. This discrimination is clearly improved with a stack of two scintillators: a 6Li-depleted glass bonded to a 6Li-enriched glass. The optical contact bonding is used between the scintillators in order to obtain a perfect optical contact. The scintillators detection efficiency is similar to that of a 3He Strelkov gas detector. Coupled to a digital data acquisition system, counting rates up to a few 10^5 counts/s can be handled. A detector based on such a scintillator stack arrangement was built and has been used in the neutron electric dipole moment experiment at the Paul Scherrer Institute since 2010. Its response for the regular runs of the neutron electric dipole moment experiment is presented.
Accurately measuring the neutron beam polarization of a high flux, large area neutron beam is necessary for many neutron physics experiments. The Fundamental Neutron Physics Beamline (FnPB) at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) is a pulsed neutron beam that was polarized with a supermirror polarizer for the NPDGamma experiment. The polarized neutron beam had a flux of $sim10^9$ neutrons per second per cm$^2$ and a cross sectional area of 10$times$12~cm$^2$. The polarization of this neutron beam and the efficiency of a RF neutron spin rotator installed downstream on this beam were measured by neutron transmission through a polarized $^{3}$He neutron spin-filter. The pulsed nature of the SNS enabled us to employ an absolute measurement technique for both quantities which does not depend on accurate knowledge of the phase space of the neutron beam or the $^{3}$He polarization in the spin filter and is therefore of interest for any experiments on slow neutron beams from pulsed neutron sources which require knowledge of the absolute value of the neutron polarization. The polarization and spin-reversal efficiency measured in this work were done for the NPDGamma experiment, which measures the parity violating $gamma$-ray angular distribution asymmetry with respect to the neutron spin direction in the capture of polarized neutrons on protons. The experimental technique, results, systematic effects, and applications to neutron capture targets are discussed.
A new time projection chamber (TPC) was developed for neutron lifetime measurement using a pulsed cold neutron spallation source at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC). Managing considerable background events from natural sources and the beam radioactivity is a challenging aspect of this measurement. To overcome this problem, the developed TPC has unprecedented features such as the use of polyether-ether-ketone plates in the support structure and internal surfaces covered with $^6$Li-enriched tiles to absorb outlier neutrons. In this paper, the design and performance of the new TPC are reported in detail.