Observation of Neutrons with a Gadolinium Doped Water Cerenkov Detector

Understand

Spontaneous and induced fission in Special Nuclear Material (SNM) such as 235U and 239Pu results in the emission of neutrons and high energy gamma-rays.

• The multiplicities of and time correlations between these particles are both powerful indicators of the presence of fissile material.
• Detectors sensitive to these signatures are consequently useful for nuclear material monitoring, search, and characterization.
• In this article, we demonstrate sensitivity to both high energy gamma-rays and neutrons with a water Cerenkov based detector.