Discrimination of neutrons and γ-rays in liquid scintillator based on Elman neural network**Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (11275134,11475117)

Abstract

In this work, a new neutron and γ (n/γ) discrimination method based on an Elman Neural Network (ENN) is proposed to improve the discrimination performance of liquid scintillator (LS) detectors. Neutron and γ data were acquired from an EJ-335 LS detector, which was exposed in a 241Am-9Be radiation field. Neutron and γ events were discriminated using two methods of artificial neural network including the ENN and a typical Back Propagation Neural Network (BPNN) as a control. The results show that the two methods have different n/γ discrimination performances. Compared to the BPNN, the ENN provides an improved of Figure of Merit (FOM) in n/γ discrimination. The FOM increases from 0.907 ± 0.034 to 0.953 ± 0.037 by using the new method of the ENN. The proposed n/γ discrimination method based on ENN provides a new choice of pulse shape discrimination in neutron detection.