A Functional Form for Liquid Scintillator Pulse Shapes

TL;DR

This paper introduces a sigmoid-based analytical function to accurately model and fit liquid scintillator pulse shapes, improving timing and particle discrimination in detector signals.

Contribution

It presents a novel sigmoid-based analytical model for liquid scintillator pulse shapes, enhancing signal analysis and particle discrimination capabilities.

Findings

Effective pulse shape fitting with sigmoid functions.

Improved timing extraction accuracy.

Enhanced neutron-gamma discrimination.

Abstract

Digitization of detector signals enables analysis of the original waveform to extract timing, particle identification, and energy deposition information. Here we present the use of analytical functions based on sigmoids to model and fit such pulse shapes from liquid organic scintillators, though the method should also be applicable to other detector systems. Neutron and gamma interactions in NE213 detectors were digitized from the phototube anode and fit using a sigmoid-based function. The acuity of the fit in extracting timing information and performing neutron-gamma pulse-shape discrimination are presented and discussed.