Response to cosmic muons of scintillator-SiPM assemblies measured at different temperatures

TL;DR

This study investigates how the response of scintillator-SiPM assemblies to cosmic muons varies with temperature, revealing a 10% decrease at lower temperatures when reflective films are used.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed measurement of temperature effects on scintillator-SiPM assemblies with different reflective coverages in the context of particle physics calorimeters.

Findings

Bare scintillator tiles show no temperature dependence.

Reflective film coverage causes a 10% response reduction from +30°C to -30°C.

Temperature effects are significant for calorimeter design at varying operating temperatures.

Abstract

Highly segmented calorimeters represent a modern trend in experimental particle physics aimed at improving the energy resolution with the particle flow reconstruction. The widely used and cost-effective solution is the structure assembled from small scintillator elements readout by tiny photosensors. The improvement of signal to noise ratio can be achieved by operating at low temperatures. The paper presents studies of temperature dependence of response to muons for elements comprised of plastic scintillator tiles with different options of reflective coverage and read out by silicon photomultipliers. No temperature dependence of response for bare tiles has been detected. With reflective film, the reduction of response with decreasing temperature is observed. The measured effect amounts to 10% in the range from +30oC to -30oC.