Measurement of Time Resolution of Scintillation Detectors with EQR-15 Silicon Photodetectors for the Time-of-Flight Neutron Detector of the BM@N Experiment

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the time resolution and light yield of scintillation detectors with EQR-15 silicon photodetectors, aiming to optimize neutron detection for the BM@N experiment's time-of-flight measurements.

Contribution

It provides experimental measurements of scintillation detector performance using EQR-15 photodetectors, comparing different scintillator materials for neutron detection applications.

Findings

EQR-15 photodetectors achieve high time resolution with scintillators.

Light yields vary between scintillator types, affecting detector efficiency.

Results support the development of high-granular neutron detectors for nuclear physics experiments.

Abstract

To study the dependence of the equation of state of high density nuclear matter on the term characterizing the isospin (proton-neutron) asymmetry of nuclear matter, it is necessary to measure azimuthal flow of neutrons as well as azimuthal flow of charged particles from a dense nuclear matter in the nuclear-nuclear collisions. For this purpose INR RAS is developing a new high-granular neutron detector which will be used in the BM@N experiment at the extracted beam of the Nuclotron accelerator at JINR (Dubna). This detector will identify neutrons and measure their energies in the heavy-ion collisions up to 4 GeV per nucleon. This article presents the results of measurements of the time resolution and light yields of samples of scintillation detectors with sizes 40$\times$40$\times$25 mm$^3$ that will be used in a neutron detector based on the currently available fast plastic scintillator manufactured by JINR using an EQR15 11-6060D-S photodetector for light readout. For comparison, the results of measurements for a detector of the same size with a fast scintillator EJ-230 and with the same type of photodetector are given. The measurements were made on cosmic muons as well as on the electron synchrotron "Pakhra" of the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences located in Troitsk, Moscow.