Related papers: Development of a low background liquid scintillati…
Development of ultra low background gas proportional counters has made the contribution from naturally occurring radioactive isotopes -- primarily $\alpha$ and $\beta$ activity in the uranium and thorium decay chains -- inconsequential to…
Low counting experiments (search for double $\beta$ decay and dark matter particles, measurements of neutrino fluxes from different sources, search for hypothetical nuclear and subnuclear processes, low background $\alpha$, $\beta$,…
Characteristics of a scintillation proportional counter with WLS fiber optics readout is described. The possibility of detection of the proportional scintillation signal produced by the single electron of primary ionization is shown. The…
A new detector is being developed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) to measure low energy charged-particles from beta-delayed particle emission. These low energy particles are very important for nuclear…
A technique to measure low intensity fast neutron flux has been developed. The design, calibrations, procedure for data analysis and interpretation of the results are discussed in detail. The technique has been applied to measure the…
The Spherical gaseous detector (or Spherical Proportional Counter, SPC) is a novel type of par- ticle detector, with a broad range of applications. Its main features include a very low energy threshold independent of the volume (due to its…
Argon-37 is an environmental signature of an underground nuclear explosion. Producing and quantifying low-level Ar-37 standards is an important step in the development of sensitive field measurement instruments. This paper describes…
Micromegas detectors, thanks to the good spatial and temporal discrimination capabilities, are good candidates for rare event search experiments. Recent X-ray background levels achieved by these detectors in the CAST experiment have…
Environmental neutrons are a source of background for rare event searches (e.g., dark matter direct detection and neutrinoless double beta decay experiments) taking place in deep underground laboratories. The overwhelming majority of these…
Scintillating crystal detector offers potential advantages in low-energy (keV-MeV range) low-background experiments for particle physics and astrophysics. The merits are discussed using CsI(Tl) crystal as illustrations. The various physics…
In this short note we present results of background measurements carried out with a polystyrene based cast plastic 12.0x12.0x3.0 cm^3 size scintillator counter with a wavelength shifting fibre and a multi-pixel Geiger mode avalanche…
A new ultra low-level counting setup has been installed in the shallow-underground laboratory Felsenkeller in Dresden, Germany. It includes a high-purity germanium detector (HPGe) of 163\% relative efficiency within passive and active…
Future large liquid argon direct dark matter detectors can benefit greatly from an efficient surface background rejection technique. To aid the development of these large scale detectors a test stand, Argon-1, has been constructed at…
A low-background neutron detector array was developed to measure the cross section of the $^{13}$C($\alpha$,n)$^{16}$O reaction, which is the neutron source for the $s$-process in AGB stars, in the Gamow window ($E_{c.m.}$ = 190 $\pm$ 40…
A liquid scintillator (LS) is developed for the Taishan Antineutrino Observatory (TAO), a ton-level neutrino detector to measure the reactor antineutrino spectrum with sub-percent energy resolution by adopting Silicon Photomultipliers…
ZnMoO$_4$ scintillators with a mass of $\sim$ 0.3 kg, as well as Zn$^{100}$MoO$_4$ crystals enriched in the isotope $^{100}$Mo were produced for the first time by using the low-thermal-gradient Czochralski technique. The optical and…
Liquid nitrogen is commonly used in cryogenic applications and is a promising medium for the direct immersion cooling of sensors used for nuclear and particle physics experiments. The scintillation properties of gaseous nitrogen are…
We describe the upgrade and performance of the high-purity germanium counting facility Gator, which is dedicated to low-background $\gamma$-ray spectrometry. Gator is operated at the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory in Italy, at an average…
We developed a low-mass and high-efficiency charged particle detector for an experimental study of the rare decay $K_L \rightarrow \pi^0 \nu \bar{\nu}$. The detector is important to suppress the background with charged particles to the…
Samples from different materials typically used as optical windows or light guides in scintillation detectors were studied in a very low background environment, at the Canfranc Underground Laboratory, searching for scintillation. A positive…