Abstract
The measurement of thermal neutrons generated by cosmic ray extensive air showers (EAS) on the Earth’s surface provides a new method for studying the composition and energy of cosmic rays with energy in the so-called “knee” region. Given the success of the PRISMA-YBJ array, a new type of thermal neutron detector array was installed at the high-altitude cosmic ray observatory in Yangbajing, Tibet. The array consists of 16 EN-detectors and utilizes a new type scintillator based on a compound alloy of ZnS(Ag) and B2O3 with natural boron. This report describes the deployment of the detector array and its operational results.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the essential support of YBJHA experiment. We also thank the support of Lianai Yu and Hengqiang Zhang in the installation, debugging, and maintenance of the detectors.
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Funding This work is supported in China by the International Partnership Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant number 113111KYSB20170055), National Natural Science Foundation (NSFC) (grant number 11963004, 11375052, 11873005, 11765019), and Cultivation Foundation of Tibet University (grant number ZDTSJH19-13),and Funding support for the first-class discipline construction of Tibet University in 2020, and in Russia by RFBR (grant number 18-02-00339), RAS Presidium Program “Physics of fundamental interactions and nuclear technology”.
Conflicts of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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Liu, MY., Alekseenko, V., Cui, SW. et al. Performance of the thermal neutron detector array in Yangbajing, Tibet for cosmic ray EAS detection. Astrophys Space Sci 365, 123 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-020-03835-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-020-03835-0