High-Efficiency Measurement of Neutron Products with Liquid 3-He
Prof. Anthony Villano
Department of Physics
University of Colorado, Denver
I will discuss a prototype detector for neutron measurement with a scintillator made of liquid 3-He. Reactions with high relevance to nuclear astrophysics that have outgoing neutrons--like 22-Ne(alpha,n)--are difficult to measure because of the low cross section and relatively low-energy neutron products. Traditional gaseous 3-He detectors have excellent energy resolution but very poor efficiency for detecting neutrons above thermal energies. The hope for our research is to develop a high-efficiency and high-resolution neutron measurement scheme via a joint detector R&D effort between the University of Colorado Denver and Notre Dame. A successful detector demonstration will open up new avenues in the precise measurement of neutron-producing reactions for nuclear astrophysics.
Hosted by Dr. deBoer