Time and space reconstruction in optical, non-imaging, scintillator-based particle detectors

Abstract

A new generation of ultra-low-background scintillator-based detectors aims to study solar neutrinos and search for dark matter and new physics beyond the Standard Model. These optical, non-imaging detectors generally contain a "fiducial volume" from which data are accepted, and an "active buffer region" where there are higher levels of radioactive contaminants. Events are observed in real time. To distinguish between events occurring in the two regions, it is imperative that event position reconstruction be well-understood. The object of this paper is the study of the reconstruction, in time and space, of scintillation events in detectors of large dimensions. A general, likelihood-based method of position reconstruction for this class of detectors is presented. The potential spatial resolution of the method is then evaluated. It is shown that for a spherical detector with a large number N of photosensitive elements that detect photons, the expected spatial resolution at the center of the detector is given by delta a ~ (c sigma / n) sqrt(3/N), where sigma is the width of the scintillator time response function and n is the index of refraction in the medium. However, if light in the detector has a scattering mean free path much less than the detector radius R, the resolution instead becomes (R/2) sqrt(3/N). Finally, a formalism is introduced to deal with the common case in which only the arrival time of the first photon to arrive at each photosensitive element can be measured.

24 pages, 3 figures; to be submitted to Nucl. Instr. Methods A

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• Vertex and Energy Reconstruction in JUNO with Machine Learning Methods
• Event vertex and time reconstruction in large volume liquid scintillator detector
• A measurement of the time profile of scintillation induced by low energy gamma-rays in liquid xenon with the XMASS-I detector
• Novel techniques for alpha/beta pulse shape discrimination in Borexino
• Low-energy (anti)neutrino physics with Borexino: Neutrinos from the primary proton-proton fusion process in the Sun
• First-principle event reconstruction by time-charge readouts for the Taishan Antineutrino Observatory
• Time and position distributions in large volume spherical scintillation detectors