Erlangen 2026 – scientific programme

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 31: Scintillator Detectors I

T 31.2: Talk

Tuesday, March 17, 2026, 16:30–16:45, KH 01.014

Timing performance of multiple prototypes of the Surrounding Background Tagger of the SHiP experiment — •Alessia Brignoli for the SHiP-SBT collaboration — Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

SHiP (Searching for Hidden Particles) is a beam-dump experiment that will be built at CERN, to search for new feebly interacting particles. A crucial component of the SHiP experiment is the Surrounding Background Tagger (SBT), a liquid scintillator based detector designed to suppress background arising from muons entering the helium-filled decay volume, as well as from muon/neutrino inelastic interactions occurring within the decay volume and its surroundings. The SBT consists of about 900 cells filled with liquid scintillator (LAB+PPO). Light collection is achieved through two PMMA wavelength-shifting optical modules (WOMs) per cell, each optically coupled to an array of 40 SiPMs. This work presents a collection of results from timing performance studies of SBT prototypes developed and tested between 2022 and 2025 at the CERN PS and at DESY Hamburg. The prototypes differ in the cell construction material as well as in the materials used to enhance the reflectivity of the inner walls, which is a crucial factor for light collection. In addition to the timing performance, the detector's capability of reconstruct particle crossing point and direction was studied. Finally, the experimental results were compared with Geant4-based photon transport simulations, providing further insight into the detector response and the overall quality of the constructed prototypes.

Keywords: SHiP; background rejection; liquid scintillator; performance studies