The study of the neutral current elastic scattering of neutrinos on protons at lower energies can be used as a compelling probe to improve our knowledge of the strangeness of the proton. We consider a neutrino beam generated from pion decay at rest, as provided by a cyclotron or a spallation neutron source and a 1 kton scintillating detector with a potential similar to the Borexino detector. Despite several backgrounds from solar and radioactive sources, it is possible to estimate two optimal energy windows for the analysis, one between 0.65 and 1.1 MeV and another between 1.73 and 2.2 MeV. The expected number of neutral current events in these two regions, for an exposure of 1 yr, is enough to obtain an error on the strange axial charge 10 times smaller than available at present.

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A: Multiple Coulomb Scattering (MCS) based muon tomography technique has been considered to be a well-known tool to identify, discriminate, and to image the high-density objects placed inside closed volumes. The two most famous reconstruction algorithms are Point of Closest Approach (PoCA) and Maximum Likelihood Expectation Maximization (MLEM). PoCA is fast but purely geometrical and as a result of this, it gives a lot of false positives, i.e. sometimes the PoCA point lies outside the target object and hence it forms an envelope of false-positive which results in a smeared image. On the other hand, MLEM is an iterative algorithm and is much more computation-intensive. In this work a new and innovative method is proposed which is based on the concept of voxelization to handle the known problem of false positives of the PoCA algorithm, and hence provide a clear reconstructed image. These algorithms remove the false positives PoCA points from the 3D point cloud and will give useful information in terms of regions or voxels within a voxelized volume 'V' to do a clear image reconstruction. The advantages of the proposed algorithm to the existing algorithms are also discussed. The status of the experimental setup of the proposed facility using Resistive Plate Chamber(RPC) with spatial resolution of ∼ 1cm as muon detector, is also discussed. The preliminary data from the current experimental setup, showing detector performance and cosmic muon tracks are also shown. Since the experimental setup is not fully ready, the effectiveness of the developed algorithms and the results are evaluated using the data from the Geant4 simulation of the muon tomography setup. K: Image filtering; Resistive-plate chambers; Simulation methods and programs 1Corresponding author.

In particle accelerator facilities, experimental areas are isolated from active accelerator area with thick concrete walls. A neutron shutter is used to isolate the experimental areas from the active accelerator area in the beam line. These shutters are provided primarily to reduce the secondary radiations like neutrons in the experimental areas to permissible limit when the primary beam is blocked in the accelerator area. The reduced radiation level in the experimental areas makes the experimental areas accessible. The shutters should allow the primary beam to pass to the experimental caves when they retracted from the beam line. A new neutron shutter has been designed and fabricated. This shutter incorporates compact features with considerable reduction in length, surface area and volume. The attenuation of secondary radiations is evaluated using Monte-Carlo radiation transport code FLUKA. It is found that the features of the shutter are sufficiently good enough to reduce the diffused secondary radiations well within the permissible levels.

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