Simulations of the NEXT Detector for Reactions

The University of Tennessee (UTK) high resolution Neutron dEtector with Xn Tracking (NEXT) [1] is used to measure the energies of neutrons coming from reactions and following beta decays, using the time of flight method. The ²⁰Ne(d,n)²¹Na reaction was performed at ReA6, at the NSCL, Michigan State University using a 10 MeV/A ²⁰Ne beam on a C₂D₄ target. This was an effort to measure the energies of neutrons emitted from the (d,n) proton-transfer reaction that is useful in nuclear structure and astrophysics research. While NEXT has been used to measure beta decay previously, this was the first inverse-kinematics reaction measured by NEXT and more analysis is needed to find the best geometrical setup to achieve the best balance between efficiency and resolution for future experiments.

Using Geant4, a simulation has been developed for the (d,n) reaction to better understand the efficiency of NEXT with different geometrical setups. The information gained from these simulations will help to improve the design of experiments using NEXT and better understand the data collected by NEXT. Since this is the first inverse-kinematics reaction measured by NEXT a known reaction was used in order to benchmark the technique and find the efficiency with different geometrical setups.