An analytical approach to the evaluation of the pulse shape discrimination properties of scintillators

In this paper a general methodology to compute the performances of different pulse shape discrimination techniques, applied to exploit the intrinsic PSD features of organic and of some inorganic scintillators, is presented. The most popular methods, i.e. the rise time technique and the charge integration approach, are evaluated and compared. As a specific example, detailed calculations are carried out for a binary organic liquid scintillator under consideration for the low energy solar neutrino experiment Borexino. It is demonstrated, in particular, that the charge integration method offers superior performances, the difference being remarkable for pulses comprising a low number of photoelectrons.