https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-016-3959-2
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
Measurement of 
-particle quenching in LAB based scintillator in independent small-scale experiments
1
Institut für Kern- und Teilchenphysik, Technische Universität Dresden, 01069, Dresden, Germany
2
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1, Canada
3
Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada
4
Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, 11973, USA
5
Bronx Community College, Bronx, NY, 10453, USA
6
Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, 01314, Dresden, Germany
7
Laurentian University, 935 Ramsey Lake Road, Sudbury, ON, P3E 2C6, Canada
8
Institut für Experimentelle Kernphysik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, 76131, Karlsruhe, Germany
9
Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Bundesallee 100, 38116, Braunschweig, Germany
10
Physics Department, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YB, UK
11
Department of Physics, Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA
12
Department of Radiation Oncology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA
13
School of Physics and Astronomy, Queen Mary, University of London, London, E1 4NS, UK
* e-mail: bkrosigk@physics.ubc.ca
Received:
4
October
2015
Accepted:
19
February
2016
Published online:
29
February
2016
The -particle light response of liquid scintillators based on linear alkylbenzene (LAB) has been measured with three different experimental approaches. In the first approach, -particles were produced in the scintillator via 
C(n,)
Be reactions. In the second approach, the scintillator was loaded with 2 % of 
Sm providing an -emitter, 
Sm, as an internal source. In the third approach, a scintillator flask was deployed into the water-filled SNO+ detector and the radioactive contaminants 
Rn, 
Po and 
Po provided the -particle signal. The behavior of the observed -particle light outputs are in agreement with each case successfully described by Birks’ law. The resulting Birks parameter kB ranges from 
to 
cm/MeV. In the first approach, the -particle light response was measured simultaneously with the light response of recoil protons produced via neutron–proton elastic scattering. This enabled a first time a direct comparison of kB describing the proton and the -particle response of LAB based scintillator. The observed kB values describing the two light response functions deviate by more than 
. The presented results are valuable for all current and future detectors, using LAB based scintillator as target, since they depend on an accurate knowledge of the scintillator response to different particles.
© The Author(s), 2016
