Scintillator cubes for 3D neutrino detector SuperFGD

TL;DR

This paper discusses the development, manufacturing, and testing of scintillator cubes used in the SuperFGD neutrino detector, highlighting their design, optical properties, and performance in various tests to ensure suitability for neutrino detection.

Contribution

It introduces a novel design and production process for highly granular scintillator cubes, including their mechanical and optical characterization for use in large-scale neutrino detectors.

Findings

Cubes exhibit high optical isolation and light yield.

Mechanical properties meet design specifications.

Successful performance in cosmic muon and beamline tests.

Abstract

SuperFGD, a highly granular scintillator detector, is under construction to reduce systematic uncertainties in the T2K experiment in order to improve the sensitivity to CP-violation in neutrino oscillations. SuperFGD will be comprised of about 2x10^6 small (10x10x10 mm^3) optically isolated polystyrene based plastic scintillator cubes with three orthogonal holes 1.5 mm in diameter. The readout of scintillating light from each cube is provided by three wavelength shifting fibers inserted into the three holes and coupled to MPPC micropixel photosensors. The cubes are covered with a white chemical reflector for optical isolation. The technology of making these cubes, their mechanical properties, their main characteristics obtained during tests with cosmic muons and at the CERN beamline, and the results of the temperature tests are presented in this paper.