Determination of the ATLAS MDT chambers response to 0.5–10 MeV neutrons and development of a simulation model

The study of the MDT chambers performance under the presence of a high neutron and gamma background radiation in a wide neutron energy range is presented in this work. The neutrons were provided by the TANDEM Van Der Graaff accelerator of NCSR “Demokritos”. Emphasis was given to the comprehension of all the interactive mechanisms resulting from the presence of the high background radiation, with respect to the neutron energy and the MDT materials. The MDT response to neutrons with energies 0.5–10.0 MeV was determined. A simulation model, based on the Geant4 program, was used to describe the experimental setup and the neutron impact. The simulation results were found to be in good agreement with the experimental results.