DESIGN OF A NEUTRON SCATTERING CHAMBER USING MONTE CARLO CALCULATIONS

A spark-chamber-experiment for the measurement of solar and atmospheric neutrons in the energy-range from 50-150 MeV is described. The principle of measurement is the double elastic scattering process of the incoming neutrons with hydrogen atoms. The experimental realization of this process is difficult due to the small probability of occurence of two elastic scattering processes. In order to optimize the instrument, extensive Monte Carlo studies of various types of scattering chambers have been performed, and these calculations and the results are described here. As a result of these studies, an efficiency of 1.2 × 10-3 has been obtained for double elastic scattering events of 100 MeV neutrons for an optimized design of the chamber. © 1969.