Analysis and computation of statistic fluctuations in ICF neutron yield measurement

The plastic scintillation detector is used to measure the yield of DD neutrons or DT neutrons. Fast neutrons incident on the scintillator give rise to recoil protons. Because the range of the recoil protons is usually small compared with the dimensions of the scintillator, their full energy is deposited in the scintillator. The statistic fluctuation of the protons’ number and that of the protons’ total energy are two sources of the measurement uncertainty. Based on DT neutrons, this paper presents the algorithms to compute the probability density functions of the two statistic fluctuations. The algorithms are applicable to the related computation for other fast monoenergetic neutrons in the plastic scintillator.