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 neutron-induced nuclear recoils in a polystyrene-based plastic scintillator (UPS-923A) is presented, exploring recoil energies between 125 keV 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 parameterise the energy-dependent quenching factor. At energies above 300 keV the dependence is reasonably described using the semi-empirical formulation of Birks and a kB factor of (0.014+/-0.002) g/MeVcm^2 has been determined. Below that energy the measured quenching factor falls more steeply than predicted by the Birks formalism.

8 pages, 9 figures

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• Fast Neutron Detection with a Segmented Spectrometer
• Simultaneous measurement of organic scintillator response to carbon and proton recoils
• ALETHEIA: Hunting for Low-mass Dark Matter with Liquid Helium TPCs
• Response of gadolinium doped liquid scintillator to charged particles: measurement based on intrinsic U/Th contamination
• Characterization of Gadolinium-loaded Plastic Scintillator for Use as a Neutron Veto
• MINERvA neutrino detector response measured with test beam data