An analytic technique for the estimation of the light yield of a scintillation detector

TL;DR

This paper introduces a straightforward analytical model to estimate the light yield of scintillation detectors based on optical properties, effectively incorporating scattering and absorption effects, and validated against simulations and real data.

Contribution

It provides a simple, optical-property-based model for predicting scintillation detector light yield, validated with Monte Carlo simulations and real liquid argon data.

Findings

Model achieves few percent accuracy in predictions

Validated against Monte Carlo simulations

Successfully applied to a liquid argon detector

Abstract

A simple model for the estimation of the light yield of a scintillation detector is developed under general assumptions and relying exclusively on the knowledge of its optical properties. The model allows to easily incorporate effects related to Rayleigh scattering and absorption of the photons.The predictions of the model are benchmarked with the outcomes of Monte Carlo simulations of specific scintillation detectors. An accuracy at the level of few percent is achieved. The case of a real liquid argon based detector is explicitly treated and the predicted light yield is compared with the measured value.