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Design optimization of plastic scintillators with wavelength-shifting fibers and silicon photomultiplier readouts in the top veto tracker of the JUNO-TAO experiment

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Abstract

Plastic scintillators (PSs) embedded with wavelength-shifting fibers are widely used in high-energy particle physics, such as in muon taggers, as well as in medical physics and other applications. In this study, a simulation package was built to evaluate the effects of the diameter and layout of optical fibers on the light yield with different configurations. The optimal optical configuration was designed based on simulations and validated using two PS prototypes under certain experimental conditions. A top veto tracker (TVT) for the JUNO-TAO experiment, comprising four layers of 160 strips of PS, was designed and evaluated. The threshold was evaluated when the muon tagging efficiency of a PS strip was >99%. The efficiency of three layer out of four layer of TVT is >99%, even with a tagging efficiency of a single strip as low as 97%, using a threshold of 10 photoelectrons and assuming a 40% silicon PM photon detection efficiency.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Science Data Bank at https://www.doi.org/10.57760/sciencedb.08970 and https://www.scidb.cn/anonymous/RnpNSkJ6

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Physics, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China

    Guang Luo, Y. K. Hor, Pei-Zhi Lu, Wei Wang, Yu Chen, Xiang Xiao & Feng-Peng An

  2. Institute of High Energy Physics, Beijing, 100049, China

    Zhi-Min Wang, Ru-Hui Li, Min Li, Yi-Chen Li & Liang Zhan

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Zhi-Min Wang, Min Li, Yi-Chen Li & Liang Zhan

  4. Sino-French Institute of Nuclear Engineering and Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, 519082, China

    Wei Wang & Yue-Huan Wei

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  1. Guang Luo
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  2. Y. K. Hor
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  3. Pei-Zhi Lu
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  6. Min Li
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  9. Wei Wang
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Guang Luo, Pei-Zhi Lu, and Min Li. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Guang Luo, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Y. K. Hor, Zhi-Min Wang or Wei Wang.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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This work was supported by the School of Physics at Sun Yat-sen University, China.

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Luo, G., Hor, Y.K., Lu, PZ. et al. Design optimization of plastic scintillators with wavelength-shifting fibers and silicon photomultiplier readouts in the top veto tracker of the JUNO-TAO experiment. NUCL SCI TECH 34, 99 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41365-023-01263-7

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