Characterization and on-field performance of the MuTe Silicon Photomultipliers

TL;DR

This paper characterizes the performance of silicon photomultipliers used in the MuTe muography experiment, focusing on their behavior under temperature variations and implications for on-field operation.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of SiPM breakdown voltage, gain, noise, and optimal discrimination thresholds for high-altitude, temperature-variable environments.

Findings

Discrimination threshold should be above 5 pe to avoid noise contamination.

SiPM gain and noise vary with temperature from 0 to 40°C.

Temperature fluctuations affect the MuTe counting rate.

Abstract

The Muon Telescope is a muography experiment for imaging volcanoes in Colombia. It consists of a scintillator tracking system and a water Cherenkov detector used for particle deposited energy measurement. The MuTe operates autonomously in high altitude environments where the temperature gradient reaches up to $10$$^{\circ}$C. In this work, we characterize the breakdown voltage, gain, and noise of the telescope silicon photomultipliers for temperature variations spanning $0$ to $40$$^{\circ}$C. We demonstrated that the discrimination threshold for the MuTe hodoscope must be above 5 pe to avoid contamination due to the SiPM dark count, crosstalk, and afterpulsing. We also assess the MuTe counting rate depending on day-night temperature variations.