Study of the water Cherenkov detector with high dynamic range for LHAASO

Abstract

The Large High-Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) is being built at Haizi mountain, Sichuan, China at an altitude of 4410 m. One of its main goals is to survey the northern sky for very-high- energy (above 100 GeV) gamma ray sources via its ground-based Water Cherenkov Detector Array (WCDA). WCDA is 78000 m2 in dimension and consists of 3120 water detector cells divided into 3 water ponds. A hemispherical 8-inch photomultiplier tube (PMT) CR365-02-1 from Beijing Hamamatsu Photon Techniques INC. (BHP) is installed at the bottom-center of each cell of the first water pond to collect Cherenkov light produced by air shower particles crossing water. This proceeding includes the technical design of WCDA, the design of a high dynamic range base for CR365-02-1, the PMT test system and test results of 997 PMTs.