Liquid scintillation detector based on an acrylic sphere and silicon photomultiplier matrices

This paper presents the results of applying the matrices of silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) as multichannel photodetectors for the scintillation detectors based on a liquid scintillator. We consider the possibility of using the SiPM matrices with an appropriate optical collector to obtain an image of the luminous tracks of charged particles passing through a scintillator. Such a method allows one to obtain an image of an event inside the scintillator volume, the analysis of which makes it possible to separate different classes of events. It is expected that the proposed particle detection technique may be useful in the creation of new large detectors for neutrino astrophysics and geophysics. The detector is an acrylic sphere with a diameter of 500 mm, filled in with a liquid scintillator. The scintillator is viewed through an optical collector based on two Fresnel lenses with two matrices of 64 SiPMs. The paper describes the data collection system and the detector design, we also demonstrate a three-dimensional image of a recorded event.