Optimisation of the scintillation light collection and uniformity for the SoLid experiment

Abstract

This paper presents a comprehensive optimisation study to maximise the light collection efficiency of scintillating cube elements used in the SoLid detector. Very short baseline reactor experiments, like SoLid, look for active to sterile neutrino oscillation signatures in the anti-neutrino energy spectrum as a function of the distance to the core and energy. Performing a precise search requires high light yield of the scintillating elements and uniformity of the response in the detector volume. The SoLid experiment uses an innovative hybrid technology with two different scintillators: polyvinyltoluene scintillator cubes and ${}^6$LiF:ZnS(Ag) screens. A precision test bench based on a ${}^{207}$Bi calibration source has been developed to study improvements on the energy resolution and uniformity of the prompt scintillation signal of antineutrino interactions. A trigger system selecting the 1~MeV conversion electrons provides a Gaussian energy peak and allows for precise comparisons of the different detector configurations that were considered to improve the SoLid detector light collection. The light collection efficiency is influenced by the choice of wrapping material, the position of the ${}^6$LiF:ZnS(Ag) screen, the type of fibre, the number of optical fibres and the type of mirror at the end of the fibre. This study shows that large gains in light collection efficiency are possible compared to the SoLid SM1 prototype. The light yield for the SoLid detector is expected to be at least 52$\pm$2 photo-avalanches per MeV per cube, with a relative non-uniformity of 6 %, demonstrating that the required energy resolution of at least 14 % at 1 MeV can be achieved.

arXiv comment25 pages, 19 figures, published in JINST 2018_JINST_13_P09005

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• A novel segmented-scintillator antineutrino detector
• Performance of a full scale prototype detector at the BR2 reactor for the SoLid experiment
• Luminosity measurement at ATLAS - development, construction and test of scintillating fibre prototype detectors
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• Development of a Quality Assurance Process for the SoLid Experiment
• Short-baseline neutrino oscillations with 3+1 non-unitary mixing
• Prototype of a segmented scintillator detector for particle flux measurements on spacecraft
• NuSD: A Geant4 based simulation framework for segmented anti-neutrino detectors
• A backing detector for order-keV neutrons
• Characterisation of silicon photomultipliers in a dilution refrigerator down to 9.4 mK towards a cryogenic cosmic-ray muon veto system