Preliminary study for the detection of neutrons in heavy-ion collisions with charged particle detectors

Abstract

At Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (LNS) the CHIMERA 4π multidetector has been designed and setup to detect charged particles emitted in heavy ion collisions at intermediate energies. Properties and performances of CHIMERA have been widely demonstrated by published results obtained in the performed experiments. Moreover, in recent years, a new charged particle detector (ChPD) for correlation studies (FARCOS) has been designed, and recently a first prototype has been coupled to CHIMERA, in order to test performances in view of correlation measurements in coincidence with 4π detectors. Simultaneous neutrons and charged particles detection in heavy ion collisions represents an important experimental progress for future experiments to be performed with both stable and exotic nuclei. In order to investigate about this possibility, simple Monte Carlo simulations have been performed. Preliminary simulations have been carried out by means of MCNPX transport code to evaluate the perturbation effects, including cross-talk and time response, induced in CHIMERA and/or FARCOS Si-CsI(Tl) telescopes on (typical 20MeV) neutron signals coming from a typical reaction in heavy ion collisions at the Fermi energy. Moreover, first data analysis results of the INKIISSY experiment indicates sizable probability to detect neutrons by properly shadowing CHIMERA Si-CsI(Tl) telescopes. Analysis is still in progress.