Quenching factor for low-energy nuclear recoils in a plastic scintillator

Abstract

Plastic scintillators are widely used in industry, medicine, and scientific research, including nuclear and particle physics. Although one of their most common applications is in neutron detection, experimental data on their response to low-energy nuclear recoils are scarce. Here, the relative scintillation efficiency for neutroninduced nuclear recoils in a polystyrene-based plastic scintillator (UPS-923A) is presented, exploring recoil energies between 125 and 850 keV. Monte Carlo simulations, incorporating light collection efficiency and energy resolution effects, are used to generate neutron scattering spectra which are matched to observed distributions of scintillation signals to parameterize the energy-dependent quenching factor. At energies above 300 keV the dependence is reasonably described using the semiempirical formulation of Birks and a kB factor of (0.014 ± 0.002) g MeV −1 cm −2 has been determined. Below that energy, the measured quenching factor falls more steeply than predicted by the Birks formalism.

Enhancement Effect of Fused Double Benzene-Ring Structure on the Light Output of Carborane-Loaded Toluene- and Pseudocumene-Based Scintillators

“…kB e and kB α are the Birks factors for the fast electron and α-particle, respectively. Many studies show that Birks factor can be regarded as a constant independent of the type and energy of incident particle [14], [25], [41], [42]. Accordingly, (9) and (10) is combined as:…”

On the scintillation efficiency of carborane-loaded liquid scintillators for thermal neutron detection

“…kB e , kB α , and kB Li are the Birks factors for the fast electron, α-particle, and Li ion, respectively. Some investigations reported that kB can be also regarded as a parameter independent of the type and energy of the incident particle [19,24,29,45]. Especially, Tretyak [29], using the experimental data from dozens of reports to calculate the kB values for different organic and inorganic scintillators in response to various particles (protons, α-particles, and heavy ions), concluded that kB can be empirically considered independent of the type and energy of the particle if the measurements are conducted under the same condition.…”

Application of the CIEMAT–NIST method to plastic scintillation microspheres

“…Values of the kB parameter used in the computation of the detection efficiency were chosen from those described in the literature and obtained experimentally (Hirschberg et al, 1992;Wang et al, 2012;Reichhart et al, 2012). Fig.…”