학술논문

Deep learning based pulse shape discrimination for germanium detectors
Document Type
article
Source
European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields, Vol 79, Iss 6, Pp 1-9 (2019)
Subject
Astrophysics
QB460-466
Nuclear and particle physics. Atomic energy. Radioactivity
QC770-798
Language
English
ISSN
1434-6044
1434-6052
Abstract
Abstract Experiments searching for rare processes like neutrinoless double beta decay heavily rely on the identification of background events to reduce their background level and increase their sensitivity. We present a novel machine learning based method to recognize one of the most abundant classes of background events in these experiments. By combining a neural network for feature extraction with a smaller classification network, our method can be trained with only a small number of labeled events. To validate our method, we use signals from a broad-energy germanium detector irradiated with a $$^{228}$$ 228 Th gamma source. We find that it matches the performance of state-of-the-art algorithms commonly used for this detector type. However, it requires less tuning and calibration and shows potential to identify certain types of background events missed by other methods.