Honors Program
Honors in Physics and Astronomy
Date of Award
12-2023
Thesis Professor(s)
Robert W. Pattie Jr.
Thesis Professor Department
Physics and Astronomy
Thesis Reader(s)
Frank Hagelberg
Abstract
The UCNA Experiment at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) uses
an electron spectrometer to observe angular correlations between the neutron spin and the momenta of beta particles emitted during the process of beta (β) decay. Combined with neutron lifetime measurements, these observations probe physics beyond the standard model. In recent years there has been an effort to modernize the equipment to reduce the physical limitations of the experiment. The new prototype helps to reduce error via use of silicon photo-multipliers (SiPMs) and the SiPMs also have a greater quantum efficiency than the photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). However, there is still potential for error due to back-scatter, where an electron hits the scintillator and bounces off, but gets sent back into the scintillator by the magnetic field. Also when the SiPMs are activated they have a spike in voltage which exponentially decays. If 2 electrons hit within approximately 20 nanoseconds, there will be no new spike in 1 voltage which results in a pileup in the data. My work has focused on how to recognize when pileup and or back-scatter occurs, and how to further reduce the error in this process.
Publisher
East Tennessee State University
Document Type
Honors Thesis - Open Access
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Greathouse, Amelia, "Development of Back-scatter and Pile-up Identification for UCNA+" (2023). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 809. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/809
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.