Design and Construction of a Scintillator Based Cosmic Ray Test Stand

The Abilene Christian University Nuclear Physics Research Group has a long history of constructing detectors for experiments at national labs, such as the beam luminosity monitor for E1039 at Fermilab and upgrades for the Neutron Induced Fission Fragment Tracking Experiment (NIFFTE) at Los Alamos National Lab (LANL). As new detectors are developed and prototyped, their performance should be assessed rigorously before being used. Our group has created a modular cosmic ray test stand for this purpose. This system consists of two large planes of segmented scintillators, each with photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) on both ends. The stand itself is an 80” tall two-part stand with three shelves, which all have variable heights. The time difference between the signals from the PMT pair on a single scintillator gives a rough position resolution which allows for three-dimensional tracking. These tracked muons allow for reliable prototype testing. This stand was designed, constructed, tested, and simulated at ACU. This presentation will go over the design and construction process of this stand, current experimental results, and future upgrades to the stand.