The ${}^3$He BF${}_3$ Giant Barrel (HeBGB) Neutron Detector

Abstract

$(\alpha ,n)$ reactions play an important role in nuclear astrophysics and applications and are an important background source in neutrino and dark matter detectors. Measurements of total $(\alpha ,n)$ cross sections employing direct neutron detection often have a considerable systematic uncertainty associated with the energy-dependent neutron detection efficiency and the unknown initial neutron energy distribution. The ${}^3\mathrm{He}{\mathrm{BF}}_3$ Giant Barrel (HeBGB) neutron detector was built at the Edwards Accelerator Laboratory at Ohio University to overcome this challenge. HeBGB offers a near-constant neutron detection efficiency of ($7.5\pm 1.2$) \% over the neutron energy range 0.01 MeV -- 9.00 MeV, removing a significant source of systematic uncertainty present in earlier $(\alpha ,n)$ cross section measurements.

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Measurements of the ${}^{27}\mathrm{Al}(\alpha ,n)$ Thick Target Yield Near Threshold
• Status and future directions for direct cross-section measurements of the 13C(a,n)16O reaction for astrophysics
• miniBELEN: a modular neutron counter for (alpha,n) reactions
• Thick-target Yield of ${}^{65}$Cu($\alpha ,n{)}^{68}$Ga Near Threshold and Implications for Nuclear Medicine, Deep Underground Detector Backgrounds, and Nucleosynthesis