Light output response of EJ-309 liquid organic scintillator to 2.86–3.95 MeV carbon recoil ions due to neutron elastic and inelastic scatter

We present the first measurements of energy-dependent light output from carbon recoils in the liquid organic scintillator EJ-309. For this measurement, neutrons were produced by an associated particle deuterium–tritium generator and scattered by a volume of EJ-309 scintillator into stop detectors positioned at four fixed angles. Carbon recoils in the scintillator were isolated using triple coincidence among the associated particle detector , scatter detector, and stop detectors. The kinematics of elastic and inelastic scatter allowed data collection at eight specific carbon recoil energies between 2.86 and 3.95 MeV. We found the light output caused by carbon recoils in this energy range to be approximately 1.14% of that caused by electrons of the same energy, which is comparable to the values reported for other liquid organic scintillators. A comparison of the number of scattered neutrons at each angle to a Monte Carlo N-Particle eXtended simulation indicates that the ENDF/B-VII.1 evaluation of differential cross sections for 14.1 MeV neutrons on carbon has discrepancies with the experiment as large as 55%, whereas those reported in the JENDL-4.0u evaluation agree with experiment.