A beam test of PbWO4 Cherenkov radiators

PbWO4 heavily doped with trivalent rare-earth ions like La3+, Gd3+, Y3+, etc. has recently been proposed as an excellent new, heavy and radiation-hard Cherenkov radiator, and the upper limit of the remaining scintillation light yield (LY) was obtained from measurement of radioisotope gamma-rays. Since then, we have made a quantitative study of the remaining scintillation LY using a 0.5-1 GeV/c pi(+)/p/d beam. Compared with a standard PbWO4: Gd(80 at ppm) scintillator, the scintillation LY is quenched to 4.8%. 6.0%, and 11.6% for La3+ concentration of 8 at%, La3+ of 5 at% and Gd 31 of 3 at%, respectively. The scintillation LY remaining in PbWO4: La(8 at%) was as weak as 15%. of the Cherenkov LY for relativistic charged particles. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.