Liquid Argon Cryogenic Detector Calibration by Inelastic Scattering of Neutrons

TL;DR

This paper proposes a calibration method for liquid argon cryogenic detectors using inelastic neutron scattering, significantly increasing useful event count rates and reducing background noise with a tagged neutron generator.

Contribution

It introduces a novel calibration scheme utilizing inelastic scattering of monoenergetic neutrons, improving efficiency over traditional elastic scattering methods.

Findings

Forty times increase in useful event count rate.

Effective background reduction with tagged neutron generator.

Applicable for recoil energies around 8.2 keV.

Abstract

A method for calibration of cryogenic liquid argon detector response to recoils with certain energy -8.2 keV - is proposed. The method utilizes a process of inelastic scattering of monoenergetic neutrons produced by fusion DD neutron generator. Features of kinematics of inelastic scattering cause sufficient (forty times) increase in count rate of useful events relative to traditional scheme exploited elastic scattering with the same recoil energy and compatible energy resolution. The benefits of the proposed scheme of calibration most well implemented with the use of tagged neutron generator as a neutron source that allows to eliminate background originated from casual coincidence of signals on cryogenic detector and additional detector of scattered neutrons.