Unfolding neutron spectrum with Markov Chain Monte Carlo at MIT research Reactor with He-3 Neutral Current Detectors
Name
1710.00802.pdf
Size
1.1 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Leder, Alexander Friedrich
Anderson, A.J.
Billard, J.
Figueroa-Feliciano, E.
Formaggio, Joseph A
Hasselkus, C.
Newman, E.
Palladino, K.
Phuthi, Mgcini Keith
Winslow, Lindley
Date Issued
February 2018
Journal
Journal of Instrumentation
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Citation
Leder, A. et al. “Unfolding Neutron Spectrum with Markov Chain Monte Carlo at MIT Research Reactor with He-3 Neutral Current Detectors.” Journal of Instrumentation 13, 2 (February 2018): P02004–P02004 © 2018 IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa Medialab
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
The Ricochet experiment seeks to measure Coherent (neutral-current) Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering (CEνNS) using dark-matter-style detectors with sub-keV thresholds placed near a neutrino source, such as the MIT (research) Reactor (MITR), which operates at 5.5 MW generating approximately 2.2 × 10¹⁸ ν/second in its core. Currently, Ricochet is characterizing the backgrounds at MITR, the main component of which comes in the form of neutrons emitted from the core simultaneous with the neutrino signal. To characterize this background, we wrapped Bonner cylinders around a ³₂He thermal neutron detector, whose data was then unfolded via a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to produce a neutron energy spectrum across several orders of magnitude. We discuss the resulting spectrum and its implications for deploying Ricochet at the MITR site as well as the feasibility of reducing this background level via the addition of polyethylene shielding around the detector setup.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
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DOI of Published Version
http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/13/02/P02004
