Extruded plastic scintillator for MINERvA

Abstract

An extrusion line has recently been installed at Fermilab in collaboration with NICADD (Northern Illinois Center for Accelerator and Detector Development). This new facility will serve to further develop and improve extruded plastic scintillator. Since polystyrene is widely used in the consumer industry, the logical path was to investigate the extrusion of commercial-grade polystyrene pellets with dopants to yield high quality plastic scintillator. The D0 and MINOS experiments are already using extruded scintillator strips in their detectors. A new experiment at Fermilab is pursuing the use of extruded plastic scintillator. A new plastic scintillator strip is being tested and its properties characterized. The initial results are presented here.