Fluorescence decay-time constants in organic liquid scintillators

TL;DR

This paper measures fluorescence decay-time constants in organic liquid scintillators, providing data crucial for optimizing large-volume neutrino detectors and proton decay searches.

Contribution

It presents new measurements of decay-time constants for PXE and LAB scintillators, relevant for neutrino and proton decay experiments.

Findings

Decay-time constants measured for PXE and LAB scintillators

Results impact the sensitivity of the LENA detector

Data informs proton decay search strategies

Abstract

The fluorescence decay-time constants have been measured for several scintillator mixtures based on phenyl-o-xylylethane (PXE) and linear alkylbenzene (LAB) solvents. The resulting values are of relevance for the physics performance of the proposed large-volume liquid scintillator detector LENA (Low Energy Neutrino Astronomy). In particular, the impact of the measured values to the search for proton decay via p -> K+ antineutrino is evaluated in this work.