Tracking fast neutrons

Abstract

Based on elastic collisions, the linear momentum of a fast neutron can be measured from as few as two consecutive recoil ion tracks plus the vertex position of the third collision, or `two and half' ion tracks. If the time delay between the first two consecutive ion tracks is also measured, the number of ion tracks can be reduced to one and a half. The angular and magnitude resolutions are limited by ion range straggling to about ten percent. Multi-wire proportional chambers and light-field imaging are discussed for fast neutron tracking. Single-charge or single-photon detection sensitivity is required in either approach. Light-field imaging is free of charge-diffusion-induced image blur, but the limited number of photons available can be a challenge. ${}^1$H,${}^2$H and ${}^3$He could be used for the initial development of fast neutron trackers based on light-field imaging.

13 pages, 14 figures

References in corpus (1)

• A Background-Free Direction-Sensitive Neutron Detector2 A Background-Free Direction-Sensitive Neutron Detector

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Needs, trends, and advances in scintillators for radiographic imaging and tomography
• Ultrafast Radiographic Imaging and Tracking: An overview of instruments, methods, data, and applications
• RIPTIDE: a novel recoil-proton track imaging detector for fast neutrons
• Efficiency Studies of Fast Neutron Tracking using MCNP