Light Collection and Pulse-Shape Discrimination in Elongated Scintillator Cells for the PROSPECT Reactor Antineutrino Experiment

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A meter-long, 23-liter EJ-309 liquid scintillator detector has been constructed to study the light collection and pulse-shape discrimination performance of elongated scintillator cells for the PROSPECT reactor antineutrino experiment.

• The magnitude and uniformity of light collection and neutron/gamma discrimination power in the energy range of antineutrino inverse beta decay products have been studied using gamma and spontaneous fission calibration sources deployed along the cell long axis.
• We also study neutron-gamma discrimination and light collection abilities for differing PMT and reflector configurations.
• Key design features for optimizing MeV-scale response and background rejection capabilities are identified.