Return to unsaturated response of polymeric scintillators excited by relativistic heavy ions

Abstract

From the response of two scintillators to relativistic 20Ne ions obtained at the Lawrence Berkeley Bevalac, to cosmic-ray iron ions, and to atmospheric muons, it is shown that plastic scintillators provide a very nearly linear response in d E/dx at high charge and relativistic energies, i.e., scintillators become “unsaturated” in this regime. Scintillators operated in this regime are found to be “halo” detectors, sensitive almost solely to delta rays with energies above 1.5 keV. A simple algebraic expression 13) is given which permits rapid calculation of scintillator response.