Suppressing ringing caused by large photomultiplier tube signals

We describe here the characteristic features of the ringing we observed following large PMT signals in the Daya Bay reactor antineutrino experiment. We conclude that the ceramic capacitors used in the circuitry of the PMT bases and the HV-signal decouplers are the primary cause for this ringing. We present some possible schemes to reduce the ringing when replacing these ceramic capacitors is not feasible.     

Design and performance study of the LEPD silicon tracker onboard the CSES satellite

The low energy particle detector (LEPD) is one of the main payloads onboard the China seismic electromagnetic satellite (CSES). The detector is designed to ascertain space electrons (0.1-10 MeV) and protons (2-50 MeV). It has the capability of identifying the electrons and protons, to measure the energy spectrum and the incident angle of the particles. The LEPD is made up of a silicon tracker system, a CsI (Tl) mini-calorimeter, an anti-coincidence system made by plastic scintillator, as well as electronics and a data acquisition system (DAQ). The tracker is also a kind of E-E telescope; it consists of two layers of double-sided silicon strip detectors (DSSD). The signals emerging from the silicon tracker can be read out by two pieces of application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), which also can generate an event trigger for the LEPD. The functions of the DSSD system in the LEPD for charged particles were tested by 241Am @5.486 MeV α particles. The results show that the DSSD system works well, and has high performance to detect charged particles and measure the position of incident particles.     

A geometric factor calculation method based on the isotropic flux assumption

One of the instruments onboard the China Seismic Electromagnetic Satellite （CSES） is the Low Energy Particle Detector （LEPD）. The primary objective of LEPD is to provide measurements of the fluxes, energy spectra and pitch angles of 100 keV to 10 MeV electrons and protons from 2 to 50 MeV in the Earth＇s magnetosphere. The geometric factor is one of the principle parameters of a detector, which converts the physical quantity-count rate to the particle quantity-flux. In this paper, we calculated the geometric factor of LEPD via computer modeling of an isotropic radiation environment. It was first demonstrated that the radiation intensity related should obey a cosine-law, then a general sampling method of generating this distribution via GPS of GEANT4 was explained. Furthermore, combined with flux normalization, a comparison of the geometric factor calculation of a set of 2-layer detectors with different shapes （cylinder, truncated cone and rectangle） was performed. Results show a generally good agreement between simulation and analytical calculations for the cylinder and truncated cone detectors, and the result of the rectangular one, for which there is no accurate analytical formula, is consistent with the previous simulated results by others. As a practical instance of the 2-layer rectangle detector, the geometric factor of LEPD is 10.336±0.036 m cm2·sr for 10 MeV proton and 8.211±0.032 m cm2·sr for 8 MeV electron.     

PMT waveform modeling at the Daya Bay experiment

Detailed measurements of Hamamatsu R5912 photomultiplier signals are presented, including the single photoelectron charge response, waveform shape, nonlinearity, saturation, overshoot, oscillation, prepulsing, and afterpulsing. The results were used to build a detailed model of the PMT signal characteristics over a wide range of light intensities. Including the PMT model in simulated Daya Bay particle interactions shows no significant systematic effects that are detrimental to the experimental sensitivity.