Measurement of cosmic muon-induced neutron background with ISMRAN detector in a non-reactor environment

Abstract

The Indian Scintillator Matrix for Reactor Anti-Neutrinos (ISMRAN) is an above-ground, very short baseline reactor anti-neutrino (${\overline{\ensuremathν}}_{e}$) experiment, located inside the Dhruva research reactor facility, Mumbai, India. The primary goal of the ISMRAN experiment is the indirect detection of reactor ${\overline{\ensuremathν}}_{e}$ through an inverse beta decay (IBD) process, using a cluster of 90 optically segmented plastic scintillator detectors, weighing $\sim$1 ton. In this work, we present the neutron capture time response and energy deposition of neutron capture signals generated by cosmic muons in the ISMRAN geometry, and we compare these experimental results with Geant4-based Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. The obtained mean capture time of fast neutrons is 74.46 $\pm$ 5.98 $\mu$s and is comparable with the MC simulation results. The efficiency-corrected rate of muon-induced neutron background inside the ISMRAN geometry, due to the presence of a passive shielding structure of 10 cm lead followed by 10 cm borated polyethylene with a surface area of 600 $\mathrm{c}{\mathrm{m}}^2$, deployed on top of the ISMRAN setup, is reported to be 1334 $\pm$ 64 (stat.) $\pm$ 70 (sys.) per day. This result shows good agreement with the expected background rate from MC simulations using Geant4. We also estimate the muon-induced fast-neutron rate in the ISMRAN geometry for the actual shielding configuration of 9000 $\mathrm{c}{\mathrm{m}}^2$ surface area to be 3335 $\pm$ 160 (stat.) $\pm$ 175 (sys.) neutrons $\mathrm{da}{\mathrm{y}}^{-1}$ through an extrapolation, after incorporating the model dependent acceptance correction factor from the Geant4 MC simulation. Finally, using these results, we evaluate the neutron production yield due to the composite shielding in the ISMRAN geometry, which is 2.81$\times$$10^{-5}$ neutrons per $\mu$ per (g/$\mathrm{c}{\mathrm{m}}^2$) at sea level.

References in corpus (29)

• The Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly
• Improved Predictions of Reactor Antineutrino Spectra
• On the determination of anti-neutrino spectra from nuclear reactors
• Measurement of the Reactor Antineutrino Flux and Spectrum at Daya Bay
• Evolution of the Reactor Antineutrino Flux and Spectrum at Daya Bay
• Predicting Neutron Production from Cosmic-ray Muons
• Online Monitoring of the Osiris Reactor with the Nucifer Neutrino Detector
• Experimental Results from an Antineutrino Detector for Cooperative Monitoring of Nuclear Reactors
• Stereo neutrino spectrum of 235U fission rejects sterile neutrino hypothesis
• Fuel-composition dependent reactor antineutrino yield at RENO
• The 5 MeV bump - a nuclear whodunit mystery
• Extraction of the ${}^{235}$U and ${}^{239}$Pu Antineutrino Spectra at Daya Bay
• Reactor antineutrino monitoring with a plastic scintillator array as a new safeguards method
• Measurement of the Antineutrino Spectrum from ${}^{235}$U Fission at HFIR with PROSPECT
• Background Radiation Measurements at High Power Research Reactors
• A plastic scintillator array for reactor based anti-neutrino studies
• Simulation of neutrons produced by high-energy muons underground
• Final Measurement of the U235 Antineutrino Energy Spectrum with the PROSPECT-I Detector at HFIR
• Joint Measurement of the ${}^{235}$U Antineutrino Spectrum by Prospect and Stereo
• Measuring cosmogenic Li9 background in a reactor neutrino experiment
• Cosmogenic Neutron Production at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory
• 9Li and 8He decays in GEANT4
• The Muon-Induced Neutron Indirect Detection EXperiment, MINIDEX
• Machine learning technique to improve anti-neutrino detection efficiency for the ISMRAN experiment
• Measurements using a prototype array of plastic scintillator bars for reactor based electron anti-neutrino detection
• Characterization of plastic scintillator bars using fast neutrons from D-D and D-T reactions
• Evaluation of the response of plastic scintillator bars and measurement of neutron capture time in non-reactor environment for the ISMRAN experiment
• Cosmic ray measurements using the ISMRAN setup in a non-reactor environment
• Cosmic Ray Induced Neutron Production in a Lead Target

Cited by in corpus (1)

• A Neutron Sensitive Detector Using 3D-Printed Scintillators