The <sup>3</sup>He BF<sub>3</sub> Giant Barrel (HeBGB) neutron detector
K. Brandenburg, G. Hamad, Z. Meisel, C. R. Brune, D. E. Carter, T. W. Danley, J. Derkin, Y. Jones-Alberty, B. Kenady, T. N. Massey, S. N. Paneru, M. Saxena, D. Soltesz, S. K. Subedi, J. Warren
Abstract
Abstract ( α,n ) reactions play an important role in nuclear astrophysics and applications and are an important background source in neutrino and dark matter detectors. Measurements of total ( α,n ) cross sections employing direct neutron detection often have a considerable systematic uncertainty associated with the energy-dependent neutron detection efficiency and the unknown initial neutron energy distribution. The 3 He BF 3 Giant Barrel (HeBGB) neutron detector was built at the Edwards Accelerator Laboratory at Ohio University to overcome this challenge. HeBGB offers a near-constant neutron detection efficiency of (7.5 ± 1.2)% over the neutron energy range 0.01 MeV–9.00 MeV, removing a significant source of systematic uncertainty present in earlier ( α,n ) cross section measurements.