Optical optimization for anti-coincidence detectors of a Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope

Abstract The anti-coincidence detectors of Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT) are designed to suppress the X-ray background induced by incident charged cosmic-ray particles. The main components of anti-coincidence detectors are thin flat plastic scintillators. In this work we apply the TracePro program to study the light transfer features in the scintillators, and we propose several optimized reflector configurations to significantly improve the light transfer efficiency. The simulation results are verified by measurements of the detector prototypes. We chose a particular optimized reflector configuration.