Development of a compact scintillator hodoscope with wavelength-shifting fibre read-out

Abstract

We report on the prototyping of a plastic scintillator hodoscope with wavelengthshifting fibre read-out by a multi-anode photomultiplier as part of the development of a detector for cosmic ray muons to be carried aboard an aircraft. Light yield and light attenuation measurements on single-and double-clad wavelength-shifting fibres were performed. Low power, low-threshold, discriminators were designed. A prototype 16-channel hodoscope with two planes was built and tested with cosmic rays. After correcting for geometrical factors a global intrinsic efficiency of ǫ > 98 % was obtained in both planes. The overall performance of the hodoscope proved it to be well suited for the Adler experiment to measure the high altitude muon flux.

Modeling scintillator and WLS fiber signals for fast Monte Carlo simulations

“…In order to check the independence of the results on the distance, the procedure was later repeated at x 0 ¼ 160 cm. No changes were appreciated 6. Despite the fact that many times the signal is also amplified by the FEB, neglecting the amplification phase will not change considerably our results.…”

“…We assume a scenario, routinely used in a large variety of experiments, consisting of a PMT attached to a front-end electronic board which discriminates and digitizes the signals at a given sampling rate. 6 Fast FPGA can be used to actually count how many times the outcome signal is above a given discriminator threshold. The schematic channel of such electronic board is shown in the right panel of Fig.…”

“…Plastic scintillators (PSC) are widely used in many kinds of radiation detectors. From elementary particle physics to astronomy and astrophysics, they often constitute a basic unit of very complex apparatuses where they play the role of either veto, counting or tracking devices [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Despite the fact that PSC can be easily shaped to meet almost any detector needs, in many circumstances, the scintillation light produced by charged particles inside the plastic cannot be readily collected at its surface.…”