Monte Carlo studies of a Micromegas neutron beam monitor

This paper describes a Micromegas neutron detector Monte Carlo simulation that has been developed, and compares its simulated neutron response with published experimental data. The theoretical and experimental results show good agreement, suggesting that the simulation is a reasonable indicator of what may be expected in practice. Modeling of changes in detector-design parameters enabled quantification of the effects of varying neutron target material, neutron-converter foil thickness, drift gap width, and gas pressure on neutron spatial resolution, and the probability of a neutron-absorption event resulting in a count exceeding a lower level discriminator intended to filter out gamma-ray events. The results presented give guidance for selecting optimum Micromegas design parameters for neutron-detection applications.