Physicists have installed a neutron trap on the former water tower of the Uralmash plant in Yekaterinburg, the so-called “White Head”. The sensor is required to study cosmic radiation. According to the press service of the RAS branch, physicists continue to search for suitable sites for other traps.
The sensor counts the number of neutrons hitting it. Outwardly, it looks like a black ball in a plastic sheath. There is a detector inside it. Polyethylene is required to slow down the particles, as their high energy interferes with counting.
After the first day after installation, 250 neutrons per second were recorded per square meter. “Such a flux of neutrons means that neutrons are responsible for no more than 20% of the dose received by humans from cosmic radiation,” the scientists explained.
The neutron trap was made at the Atomtech enterprise. It is unique, there are only two of them in Russia – the second is located in the Russian Federal Nuclear Center in Snezhinsk. Both sensors will carry out control measurements of the invariability of the cosmic neutron flux density.