ASTRA Astrophysics and Space Sciences Transactions ASTRA Astrophys. Space Sci. Trans. 1810-6536 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/astra-7-511-2011 Helium counters for low neutron flux measurements Dębicki Z. 1 Jędrzejczak K. 1 Karczmarczyk J. 1 Kasztelan M. 1 Lewandowski R. 1 Orzechowski J. 1 Szabelska B. 1 Szabelski J. 1 Tokarski P. 1 Wibig T. 1 2 The Andrzej Sołtan Institute for Nuclear Studies (IPJ), Cosmic Ray Laboratory, 90–950 Łódź 1, P.O.Box 447, Poland Physics Dept., University of Łódź, Poland 30 11 2011 7 4 511 514 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is available from http://www.astrophys-space-sci-trans.net/7/511/2011/astra-7-511-2011.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.astrophys-space-sci-trans.net/7/511/2011/astra-7-511-2011.pdf

We present a comparison of some characteristics of helium counters for measurements of low intensity neutron flux. <br><br> We focus on neutron flux density measurements in low background laboratories. Because of an extremely low counting rate (few events per hour or less), we have concentrated on counter parameters which are sometimes meaningless under regular conditions, i.e. background from internal alpha radioactivity, percentage of events in full energy peak, and the width of this peak. The background depends on residual radioactivity of the counter tube material and can not be eliminated. The full energy peak characteristics can be specified by counter gas composition. We will present a comparison of four types of helium gas counters.

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