Data-driven simultaneous vertex and energy reconstruction for large liquid scintillator detectors

High-precision vertex and energy reconstruction are crucial for large liquid scintillator detectors such as that at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory(JUNO),especially for the determination of neutrino mass ordering by analyzing the energy spectrum of reactor neutrinos.This paper presents a data-driven method to obtain a more realistic and accurate expected PMT response of positron events in JUNO and develops a simultaneous vertex and energy reconstruction method that combines the charge and time information of PMTs.For the JUNO detector,the impact of the vertex inaccuracy on the energy resolution is approximately 0.6%.

Event vertex and time reconstruction in large-volume liquid scintillator detectors

Large-volume liquid scintillator detectors with ultra-low background levels have been widely used to study neutrino physics and search for dark matter.Event vertex and event time are not only useful for event selection but also essential for the reconstruction of event energy.In this study,four event vertex and event time reconstruction algorithms using charge and time information collected by photomultiplier tubes were analyzed comprehensively.The effects of photomultiplier tube properties were also investigated.The results indicate that the transit time spread is the main effect degrading the vertex reconstruction,while the effect of dark noise is limited.In addition,when the event is close to the detector boundary,the charge information provides better performance for vertex reconstruction than the time information.

Improvement of machine learning-based vertex reconstruction for large liquid scintillator detectors with multiple types of PMTs

The precise vertex reconstruction for large liquid scintillator detectors is essential.A novel machine learning-based method was successfully developed to reconstruct an event vertex in JUNO.In this study,the performance of machine learning-based vertex reconstruction was further improved by optimizing the input images of neural networks.By separating the information of different types of PMTs and adding the information of the second hit of PMTs,the vertex resolution was improved by approximately 9.4% at 1 MeV and 9.8% at 11 MeV.

Research and Development of Gadolinium Loaded Liquid Scintillator for Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment

Daya Bay reactor anti-neutrino experiment is designed to measure an important parameter, θ13, of neutrino by using anti-neutrino created by Daya Bay and Ling Ao nuclear power plants. The experiment need 200 tonnes gadolinium loaded liquid scintillator (Gd-LS) as target. The purpose of this research is to develop suitable Gd-LS candidates for this experiment, which should have long attenuation length, high light yield, long term stability, and should be compatible with the material used to build the containers. Two kinds of Gd-LS were developed using carboxylic acids 2-ethylhexanoic acid (EHA) and 3, 5, 5-trimethylhexanoic acid (TMHA) as complexing ligands and mesitylene and linear alkyl benzene (LAB) as scintillator solvents. Four Gd-LS samples with different Gd content and complexing ligands were prepared and characterized. The relative light yields and the stabilities of all samples are satisfying, and the values of attenuation length show that TMHA is a better ligand than EHA.

Unambiguously Resolving the Potential Neutrino Magnetic Moment Signal at Large Liquid Scintillator Detectors

Non-vanishing electromagnetic properties of neutrinos have been predicted by many theories beyond the Standard Model, and an enhanced neutrino magnetic moment can have profound implications for fundamental physics. The XENON1T experiment recently detected an excess of electron recoil events in the 1–7 keV energy range, which can be compatible with solar neutrino magnetic moment interaction at a most probable value of μ_(v) = 2.1 × 10^(-11)μ_(B).However, tritium backgrounds or solar axion interaction in this energy window are equally plausible causes.Upcoming multi-tonne noble liquid detectors will test these scenarios more in depth, but will continue to face similar ambiguity. We report a unique capability of future large liquid scintillator detectors to help resolve the potential neutrino magnetic moment scenario. With O(100) kton·year exposure of liquid scintillator to solar neutrinos, a sensitivity of μ_(v) < 10^(-11)μ_(B) can be reached at an energy threshold greater than 40 keV, where no tritium or solar axion events but only neutrino magnetic moment signal is still present.

Calibration and Unfolding of the Pulse Height Spectra of Liquid Scintillator-Based Neutron Detectors Using Photon Sources

An accurate energy calibration of a 5＂× 2＂ BC501A liquid scintillator-based neutron detector by means of photon sources and the unfolding of pulse height spectra are described. The photon responses were measured with 22Na, 137Cs and 54Mn photon sources and simulated using the GRESP code, which was developed at the Physiknlisch Technische Bundesanstalt in Germany. Pulse height spectra produced by three different photon sources were employed to investigate the effects of the unfolding techniques. It was found that the four unfolding codes of the HEPRO and UMG3.3 packages, including GRAVEL, UNFANA, MIEKE and MAXED, performed well with the test spectra and produced generally consistent results. They could therefore be used to obtain neutron energy spectra in toknmak experiments.

FPGA implementation of 500-MHz high-count-rate high-time-resolution real-time digital neutron-gamma discrimination for fast liquid detectors

Fast neutron flux measurements with high count rates and high time resolution have important applications in equipment such as tokamaks.In this study,real-time neutron and gamma discrimination was implemented on a self-developed 500-Msps,12-bit digitizer,and the neutron and gamma spectra were calculated directly on an FPGA.A fast neutron flux measurement system with BC-501A and EJ-309 liquid scintillator detectors was developed and a fast neutron measurement experiment was successfully performed on the HL-2 M tokamak at the Southwestern Institute of Physics,China.The experimental results demonstrated that the system obtained the neutron and gamma spectra with a time accuracy of 1 ms.At count rates of up to 1 Mcps,the figure of merit was greater than 1.05 for energies between 50 keV and 2.8 MeV.

Measurement of the response function and the detection effciency of an organic liquid scintillator for neutrons between 1 and 30 MeV

The light output function of a φ50.8 mm×50.8 mm BC501A scintillation detector was measured in the neutron energy region of 1 to 30 MeV by fitting the pulse height （PH） spectra for neutrons with the simulations from the NRESP code at the edge range. Using the new light output function, the neutron detection effciency was determined with two Monte-Carlo codes, NEFF and SCINFUL. The calculated effciency was corrected by comparing the simulated PH spectra with the measured ones. The determined effciency was verified at the near threshold region and normalized with a Proton-Recoil-Telescope （PRT） at the 8-14 MeV energy region.

Study on gamma response function of EJ301 organic liquid scintillator with GEANT4 and FLUKA

The gamma response function is required for energy calibration of EJ301 （5 cm in diameter and 20 cm in height） organic liquid scintillator detector by means of gamma sources. The GEANT4 and FLUKA Monte Carlo simulation packages were used to simulate the response function of the detector for standard 22Na, 60Co, 137Cs gamma sources. The simulated results showed a good agreement with experimental data by incorporating the energy resolution function to simulation codes. The energy resolution and the position of the maximum Compton electron energy were obtained by comparing measured light output distribution with simulated one. The energy resolution of the detector varied from 21.2% to 12.4% for electrons in the energy region from 0.341 MeV to 1.12 MeV. The accurate position of the maximum Compton electron energy was determined at the position 81% of maximum height of Compton edges distribution. In addition, the relation of the electron energy calibration and the effective neutron detection thresholds were described in detail. The present results indicated that both packages were suited for studying the gamma response function of EJ301 detector.

Discrimination of neutrons and γ-rays in liquid scintillator based on Elman neural network

In this work, a new neutron and γ （n/γ） discrimination method based on an Elman Neural Network （ENN） is proposed to improve the discrimination performance of liquid scintillator （LS） detectors. Neutron and γ data were acquired from an EJ-335 LS detector, which was exposed in a 241Am-9Be radiation field. Neutron and γ events were discriminated using two methods of artificial neural network including the ENN and a typical Back Propagation Neural Network （BPNN） as a control. The results show that the two methods have different n/γ discrimination performances. Compared to the BPNN, the ENN provides an improved of Figure of Merit （FOM） in n/γ discrimination. The FOM increases from 0.907 4- 0.034 to 0.953 4- 0.037 by using the new method of the ENN. The proposed n/γdiscrimination method based on ENN provides a new choice of pulse shape discrimination in neutron detection.

Energy calibration of a BC501A liquid scintillator using a γ-γ coincidence technique

An accurate energy calibration of a BC501A liquid scintillator by means of Compton scattering of γ-rays is described.The energy resolution and the position of the Compton edge have been precisely determined using a γ-γ coincidence technique and fitting the coincidence spectrum with a Gaussian function superimposed on a quadratic polynomial for the background.The position of the Compton edge relative to the position of the maximum and the half height of the distribution in dependence on the relevant energy resolution is discussed in detail.The results indicate that the maximum energy of the recoil Compton electron does not occur at the half height distribution but at 0.90±0.05 of the maximum height in the energy range considered.The energy resolution varies from 15.6% to 8.02% for electrons in the energy region from 0.5 MeV to 3 MeV.

Preliminary study of light yield dependence on LAB liquid scintillator composition

Liquid scintillator （LS） will be adopted as the detector material in JUNO （Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory）. The energy resolution requirement of JUNO is 3%, which has never previously been reached. To achieve this energy resolution, the light yield of liquid scintillator is an important factor. PPO （the fluor） and bis-MSB （the wavelength shifter） are the two main materials dissolved in LAB. To study the influence of these two materials on the transmission of scintillation photons in LS, 25 and 12 cm-long quartz vessels were used in a light yield experiment. LS samples with different concentration of PPO and bis-MSB were tested. At these lengths, the light yield growth is not obvious when the concentration of PPO is higher than 4 g/L. The influence from bis-MSB becomes insignificant when its concentration is higher than 8 mg/L. This result could provide some useful suggestions for the JUNO LS.

Attenuation length measurements of a liquid scintillator with LabVIEW and reliability evaluation of the device

An attenuation length measurement device was constructed using an oscilloscope and LabVIEW for signal acquisition and processing. The performance of the device has been tested in a variety of ways. The test results show that the set-up has a good stability and high precision （sigma/mean reached 0.4 percent）. Besides, the accuracy of the measurement system will decrease by about 17 percent if a filter is used. The attenuation length of a gadolinium-loaded liquid scintillator （Gd-LS） was measured as 15.1±0.35 m where Gd-LS was heavily used in the Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment. In addition, one method based on the Beer-Lambert law was proposed to investigate the reliability of the measurement device, the R-square reached 0.9995. Moreover, three purification methods for Linear Alkyl Benzene （LAB） production were compared in the experiment.

Oxygen quenching in a LAB based liquid scintillator and the nitrogen bubbling model

The oxygen quenching effect in a Linear Alkl Benzene （LAB） based liquid scintillator （LAB as the solvent, 3 g/L 2, 5 diphe-nyloxazole （PPO） as the fluor and 15 mg/L p-bis-（o-methylstyryl）-benzene （bis-MSB） as the h-shifter） is studied by measuring the light yield as a function of the nitrogen bubbling time. It is shown that the light yield of the fully purged liquid scintillator is increased by 11% at room temperature and the room atmospheric pressure. A simple nitrogen bubbling model is proposed to describe the relationship between the relative light yield （oxygen quenching factor） and the bubbling time.

Hunting potassium geoneutrinos with liquid scintillator Cherenkov neutrino detectors

The research on geoneutrinos is a new interdisciplinary subject involving particle experiments and geo-science.Potassium-40(40K)decays contribute roughly to 1/3 of the radiogenic heat of the Earth,which is not yet accounted for by experimental observation.Solar neutrino experiments with liquid scintillators have observed uranium and thorium geoneutrinos and are the most promising experiments with regard to low-background neutrino detection.In this study,we present the new concept of using liquid-scintillator Cherenkov detectors to detect the neutrino-electron elastic scattering process of 40K geoneutrinos.Liquid-scintillator Cherenkov detectors using a slow liquid scintillator achieve this goal with both energy and direction measurements for charged particles.Given the directionality,we can significantly suppress the dominant intrinsic background originating from solar neutrinos in conventional liquid-scintillator detectors.We simulated the solar-and geo-neutrino scatterings in the slow liquid scintillator detector,and implemented energy and directional reconstructions for the recoiling electrons.We found that 40K geoneutrinos can be detected with three-standard-deviation accuracy in a kiloton-scale detector.

Laboratory measurement of radioactivity purification for ^(212)Pb in liquid scintillator

Liquid scintillator（LS） has been widely used in past and running neutrino experiments, and is expected also to be used in future experiments. Requirements on LS radio-purity have become higher and higher. Water extraction is a powerful method to remove soluble radioactive nuclei, and a mini-extraction station has been constructed. To evaluate the extraction efficiency and optimize the operation parameters, a setup to load radioactivity to LS and a laboratory scale setup to measure radioactivity using the ^212Bi-^212Po-^208Pb cascade decay have been developed. Experience from this laboratory study will be useful for the design of large scale water extraction plants and the optimization of working conditions in the future.

Temperature dependence of the light yield of the LAB-based and mesitylene-based liquid scintillators

We studied the temperature dependence of the light yield of linear alkyl benzene （LAB）-based and mesitylene-based liquid scintillators. The light yield increases by 23% for both liquid scintillators when the temper- ature is lowered from 26 ℃ to -40 ℃, correcting for the temperature response of the photomultiplier tube. The measurements help to understand the energy response of liquid scintillator detectors. Especially, the next generation reactor neutrino experiments for neutrino mass hierarchy, such as the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory （JUNO）, require very high energy resolution. As no apparent degradation on the liquid scintillator transparency was observed, lowering the operation temperature of the detector to ～4 ℃ will increase the photoelectron yield of the detector by 13%, combining the light yield increase of the liquid scintillator and the quantum efficiency increase of the photomultiplier tubes.

Measurement of the liquid scintillator nonlinear energy response to electron

Nonlinearity of the liquid scintillator energy response is a key to measuring the neutrino energy spectrum in reactor neutrino experiments such as Daya Bay and JUNO. We measured the nonlinearity of the linear alkyl benzene based liquid scintillator in the laboratory, which is used in Daya Bay and will be used in JUNO, via the Compton scattering process. By tagging the scattered gamma from the liquid scintillator sample simultaneously at seven angles, the instability of the system was largely cancelled. The accurately measured nonlinearity will improve the precision of the θ13, △m^2, and reactor neutrino spectrum measurements at Daya Bay.

Novel liquid scintillator radon detector

Purpose Radon is a noble gas,which endangers our health.The liquid scintillator is one of the detector materials used to measure radon in the environment.But there are challenges in measuring radon using a liquid scintillator,such as independent manual operation and long measurement periods.Methods and Results We propose a liquid scintillator detector for the rapid measurement of radon,which is composed of a breathable liquid scintillator probe and photomultiplier tube.Cascade decay recognition and pulse shape discrimination(PSD)were used to select radon events.241 Am4(α)and 90Sr(β)source calibration was used to optimize the PSDfigure of merit of the liquid scintillator,and a 232Th(220Rn)diffusion source was used to verify the function of this novel detector for measuring radon.Conclusion The detector had an integrated design for sampling and measurement,which simplified the measurement steps.Thus,this novel liquid scintillator detector demonstrated promise for use in radon-detection systems.

Precise measurement of attenuation length of the JUNO liquid scintillator

Introduction The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory has critical requirements on quality of the liquid scintillator,one of which is long attenuation length.Purpose A system with a height of 3 m is used to precisely measure the attenuation length of the liquid scintillators.Methods The light generated by a LED is transmitted through an optical fiber.After being focused,filtered and collimated,the light enters the test tube with the liquid scintillator and is detected by the PMT.The stepping motor is controlled by the Labview program to adjust the level of the liquid scintillator,and the emitted light intensity of different liquid levels can be obtained to fit the attenuation length.In addition,the systematic errors have been studied,which includes the measurement error of the emitted light intensity and the error caused by the movement of light spot,and the latter is responded to the non-uniformity of the PMT photocathode.Meanwhile,analytical methods were improved.Results The system can measure the attenuation length stably and a small error was obtained,including statistical error and systematic error(0.69-23.70 m).