case study 5

Student project with Defence Science and Technology Group

PhD student Lachlan Milligan (UoM) has been working on a project chiefly involving the development of a GEANT4 simulation modelling a new neutron spectrometer purchased by DSTG – a Nested Neutron Spectrometer (NNS) – which can be used to measure and characterise specific radioactive sources emitting neutrons.

The creation of this simulation was not only useful in the sense that it is a tool for DSTG to validate their experimental measurements, but also in the sense that it allowed for a transfer of expertise relating to the modelling of low energy hadronic/neutron interactions in a detector – something that the SABRE South experiment has familiarity with through the detail simulation of our own detector.

In simulating the response of this NNS, we were able to produce a detector response that differed from the one described by the manufacturer in current publications. The cross-checking of this response against experimental data indicated that the GEANT4 simulation produced in this project is a more faithful/improved simulation of the detector (as opposed to the manufacturer’s simulation), due to improved reconstruction of lower energy neutrons from a specific radioactive source. Some results from this project were presented at the CDM annual workshop in the form of a poster, which was attended by Daniel De Oliveira Damas from DSTG.

“This project allowed me to gain experience in using/simulating a detector I would not have otherwise gained with my current PhD projects, and let me improve my GEANT4 knowledge/ skills by being able to develop a full detector simulation” - Lachlan