No Arabic abstract
HEIMDAL is a thermal powder diffractometer designed to operate at the European Spallation Source, worlds most intense neutron source. The detailed design of the instrument, which is expected to enter user operation in 2024/2025, assumes that the neutrons scattered by the powder under investigation will be collected with hundreds of large-area Multi-Wire Proportional Counters employing a $^{10}$B$_4$C-solid converter. The gas counters will consists of large active volumes and tapered trapezoidal shapes that allow for close packing into a cylindrical shell with high solid angle coverage. The whole detector will operate in an air environment within the shielding cave and provide signals with sensitivity for locating detection in three dimensions. This paper presents the results of a GEANT4 study of the baseline design for the HEIMDAL powder diffraction detector. The detector model was used to study key performance parameters such as detection efficiency and spatial resolution. The contribution of the detector to the resolving power of the instrument, one of the key figures-of-merit for powder diffractometers, was also investigated. Most of the simulation results reported in this work cannot be validated against a sufficiently similar physical reference until the first segment or module are constructed and tested with neutron beam. However, these results can help identify possible ways of optimising the detector design and provide the first glimpse into the expected performance of this technological approach.
The last decade has witnessed the development of several alternative neutron detector technologies, as a consequence of upcoming neutron sources and upgrades, as well the world-wide shortage of $^3$He. One branch of development is the family of $^{10}$B-based gaseous detectors. This work focuses on the boron coated straws (BCS) by Proportional Technologies Inc., a commercial solution designed for use in homeland security and neutron science. A detailed Geant4 simulation study of the BCS is presented, which investigates various aspects of the detector performance, e.g. efficiency, activation, absorption and the impact of scattering on the measured signal. The suitability of the BCS detector for Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS), direct chopper spectrometry and imaging is discussed.
We report the performance and characterization of a custom-built hybrid detector consisting of BC501A liquid scintillator for fast neutrons and BC702 scintillator for thermal neutrons. The calibration and the resolution of the BC501A liquid scintillator detector are performed. The event identification via Pulse Shape Discrimination (PSD) technique is developed in order to distinguish gamma, fast and thermal neutrons. Monte Carlo simulation packages are developed in GEANT4 to obtain actual neutron energy spectrum from the measured recoil spectrum. The developed methods are tested by reconstruction of 241AmBe(alpha, n) neutron spectrum.
The MINERvA experiment is designed to perform precision studies of neutrino-nucleus scattering using $ u_mu$ and ${bar u}_mu$ neutrinos incident at 1-20 GeV in the NuMI beam at Fermilab. This article presents a detailed description of the minerva detector and describes the {em ex situ} and {em in situ} techniques employed to characterize the detector and monitor its performance. The detector is comprised of a finely-segmented scintillator-based inner tracking region surrounded by electromagnetic and hadronic sampling calorimetry. The upstream portion of the detector includes planes of graphite, iron and lead interleaved between tracking planes to facilitate the study of nuclear effects in neutrino interactions. Observations concerning the detector response over sustained periods of running are reported. The detector design and methods of operation have relevance to future neutrino experiments in which segmented scintillator tracking is utilized.
We present the final results from a novel Cherenkov imaging detector called the Focusing DIRC (FDIRC). This detector was designed as a full-scale prototype of the particle identification system for the SuperB experiment [1], and comprises 1/12 of the SuperB barrel azimuthal coverage, with partial photodetector and electronics implementation. The prototype was tested in the SLAC Cosmic Ray Telescope which provided 3-D tracking of cosmic muons with an angular resolution of ~1.5 mrad, a position resolution of 4-5 mm, a start time resolution of 70 ps, and muon tracks above ~2 GeV tagged using an iron range stack. The fused silica focusing photon camera was coupled to a full-size BaBar DIRC bar box and was read out, over part of the full coverage, by 12 Hamamatsu H8500 multi-anode photomultipliers (MaPMTs) providing 768 pixels. We used waveform digitizing electronics to read out the MaPMTs. We give a detailed description of our data analysis methods and point out limitations on the present performance. We present results that demonstrate some basic performance characteristics of this design, including: (a) single photon Cherenkov angle resolutions with and without chromatic corrections, (b) signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio between the Cherenkov peak and background, which primarily consists of ambiguities of the possible photon paths from emission along the track to a given pixel, (c) dTOP = TOP_measured - TOP_expected resolutions (with TOP being the photon Time-of-Propagation in fused silica), and (d) performance of the detector in the presence of high-rate backgrounds.
The European Spallation Source (ESS) is the worlds next generation spallation-based neutron source. The research conducted at ESS will yield in the discovery and development of new materials including the fields of manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, engines, plastics, energy, telecommunications, transportation, information technology and biotechnology. The spallation source will deliver an unprecedented neutron flux. In particular, the reflectometers selected for construction, ESTIA and FREIA, have to fulfill challenging requirements. Local incident peak rate can reach 10$^5$~Hz/mm$^2$. For new science to be addressed, the spatial resolution is aimed to be less than 1 mm with a desired scattering of 10$^{-4}$ (peak-to-tail ratio). The latter requirement is approximately two orders of magnitude better than the current state-of-the-art detectors. The main aim of this work is to quantify the cumulative contribution of various detector components to the scattering of neutrons and to prove that the respective effect is within the requirements set for the Multi-Blade detector by the ESS reflectometers. To this end, different sets of geometry and beam parameters are investigated, with primary focus on the cathode coating and the detector window thickness.