Cherenkov and scintillation light separation in organic liquid scintillators

The CHErenkov/Scintillation Separation experiment (CHESS) has been used to demonstrate the separation of Cherenkov and scintillation light in both linear alkylbenzene (LAB) and LAB with 2 g/L of PPO as a fluor (LAB/PPO). This is the first successful demonstration of Cherenkov light detection from the more challenging LAB/PPO cocktail and improves on previous results for LAB. A time resolution of 338±12 ps FWHM results in an efficiency for identifying Cherenkov photons in LAB/PPO of 70±3% and 63±8% for time- and charge-based separation, respectively, with scintillation contamination of 36±5% and 38±4%. LAB/PPO data is consistent with a rise time of τr=0.72±0.33 ns.