AAP 2012 – University of Hawaii

Reactor Monitoring with T2K Technology

G. Christodolou, J. Coleman , J. Tinsley, M. Murdoch, Touramanis, - Liverpool University C. Metelko - RAL/STFC

MARS --

H. Araujo, Y. Shitov - Imperial College London G. Barr, M. Haigh, A. Vacheret, A. Weber - Oxford University

1

T2K Near Detector – ND280

2

T2K-ND280 tracker event

3

The ECAL

UK Designed and built T2K-ECal modules Experience in MPPC testing and calibration (22 000 MPPCs) Developed and tested T2K electronics Energy and time calibration for the T2K neutrino oscillation experiments polystyrene with 1% doping with PPO and 0.03% POPOP 4

DsECal side view after MPPC assembly (photo T. Durkin)

Based or inspired by T2K detector technology

Based on cost-effective extruded plastic scintillators & IBD detection techniques Development Leverage on T2K neutrino experiment technology development with minimum modification to detector design MARS a system : Development of demonstrator as complete integrated system using Li6 redesign of electronics and scintillator Use of extensive know-how from ND280

Plastic scintillator read out by Y-11 fibre solid state photon detector (MPPC) dedicated front-end electronics

5

The Idea: Leverage £15M STFC project

Use T2K technology for Reactor Monitoring Replace Calorimeter Lead sheet with Gd 2 O 3 suspended in a Polymer Layer Exploit Many Man years of development Adapt Electronics Replicate Readout system Scintillator and mechanical structure from the Ecal Develop MC based on ND280 6

Reactor Monitoring with T2K technology Preliminary Detector Design

7

Use Inverse Beta Decay Signature: Exploit topology as well as delayed coincidence signature Detector is highly granular Robust & Preassembled, Construction Underway MC simulation looks very promising Wait for Commissioning & Data..

8

Configuring T2K Electronics

• Adapt ND280 electronics & DAQ to a prototype system.

• In Collaboration with RAL • FPGA based back-end, consisting of: • Read-out Merger Module • Cosmic Trigger Module • Master Clock Module • HV system in place • Coincidence trigger between scintillator planes • Leverage T2K configuration and trigger algorithms 9

Test bench System

Front-end Asics • Charge to voltage conversion • Pipe lined readout • 16 dual gained channels • 4 Asics per TFB board • Estimated 3000 channel on 48 TFB boards system for Reactor monitor • Space for expansion • Eg ~22K channels running in parallel • Ready for Installation in Detector Module 10

Overview of the system

Read-out Merger Module Trip-t Frontend Board Cosmic Trigger Module Master Clock Module

TFB Integration Cycles

System is dead in the Reset periods Incomplete Charge Collection at beginning and end of integration cycle

Length up to ~40ns in total, split between beginning and end.

Affects calorimetry, but may be used for particle tagging.

Will want to maximize integration time and minimize reset time

Readout of Neutron event

The Situation as of Today

Prototyping of systems and electronics components are underway Commission scaled down system with cosmic rays, and characterize neutron capture capacity Then test and assemble full detector based upon STFC T2K design. RAL electronics ready and working 14

Antonin Vacheret

The MARS project

Scintillator technology to detect neutrons and antineutrinos developed at Oxford and Imperial College under the MARS project IP is protected and already exploited for passive neutron detection Inspired from large scale neutrino detectors long experience in Multi-Ton highly segmented scintillator detectors (MINOS & T2K) Developing detectors for various applications passive counters (single and multiplicity counting) spectroscopic and directional applications antineutrinos (in collaboration with CNRS-Subatech) 15

Antonin Vacheret

MARS-n neutron portal demonstrator

Demonstrated cost-effective replacement of 3 He counters for fission neutron detection 6 months project completed last summer validated performance at NPL in-house development of electronic front-end >70% neutron detection efficiency first neutron detector read out with solid state photosensors Meet industry sensitivity standards

ε n (cps/ng 252Cf @ 2m) 2.91

ε γ < 10E-6 GARRn 1.01

16

Antonin Vacheret

MARS-a : a novel approach to measure low energy antineutrinos using segmented plastic scintillators based on requirements to develop compact and low maintenance antineutrino detector towards use in reactor monitoring for non-proliferation applications robust to background by design clear neutron signature use Lithium-6 compound finely segmented volume localise interaction accurately target detector is also active veto flexible and scalable design compact system with MPPC read out 1.5 m footprint including shielding (1Ton fiducial mass) 10k cubes, 2k channels

X read out

e +

5 cm

n

5 cm Y read out

17

Antonin Vacheret

Neutron detection

High capture efficiency on Lithium-6 signal detection efficiency > 70% comparable to Helium-3 Very high discrimination between neutron and γ simple charge cut and pulse properties γ efficiency : ε γ < 10 -4 Use neutron signal to trigger read out

X channel Y channel neutron signal AmBe

18

EM signal

Antonin Vacheret

Positron imaging

High light yield to charged particles Large E deposit with additional activity from annihilation γs signal within 15 cm around high hit topology cut to increase IBD event selection purity ~ 60 PE Ethres 150 keV Eres 0.13

e+ γ γ γ e+

19

Antonin Vacheret

Electronics development

MARS antineutrino will use digitiser electronics : 80MS/s to capture signal pulse properties dead-timeless no central trigger DEIMOS front-end board design and testing ongoing 32 channels based on neutron system largely inspired from T2K front-end board Digitiser board prototype being assembled first test this fall Study of digital pulse processing 20

Antonin Vacheret

MARS summary

important milestone reached with the MARS neutron project validated neutron technology extensive know how developed MARS antineutrino system under development long period of evaluation and optimisation close to completion digitiser electronics prototype designed and first test this fall Seeking Innovation fundings synergies with neutron systems competitive technology for Science and applications short baseline experiment at reactor 21

Summary

Technology developed and used for T2K is being applied to antineutrino detection plastic scintillator approach is safe, cost-effective and allow for good optimisation of performance. very promising near future route towards compact system short timescale deployment of a prototype system based on Calorimeter module design MARS system under development Primarily, based upon a highly successful STFC funded project and leverages many man hours of Intellectual resources.

Based upon an earth-quake resistant design 22