Experimental study and FLUKA simulations of a prototype micromegas chamber in a mixed neutron and photon radiation field

Detectors based on the micromegas principle have already been used in several atomic, nuclear and particle physics experiments. They have also been proposed as one of the options to upgrade the ATLAS muon spectrometer in the very forward/backward region. To meet this end, it is imperative to study their performance in a mixed (neutron and gamma) radiation field. The general-purpose Monte-Carlo code FLUKA has been employed in the present work in order to study the effect of 5.5 MeV neutrons impinging on a prototype micromegas detector developed for sLHC. The response of the detector to the photons originating from the inevitable neutron inelastic scattering on the surrounding materials of the experimental facility was also studied, through comparisons with experimental data. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.