Results of heavy ion beam tests of DAMPE plastic scintillator detector

Being the first astronomical scientific satellite of China, Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) has been launched on Dec.17,2015. One of scientific objects of DAMPE is studying the acceleration and propagation mechanisms of cosmic rays by measuring the flux of nuclei cosmic rays up to several hundred TeVs. As one of the key detectors of DAMPE, the Plastics Scintillator Detector (PSD) is used for the nuclei identification as well for the photons/electrons separation. After assembly of DAMPE engineering qualified model (EQM), several beam tests were conducted at CERN to study the performance and the reliability of DAMPE. In this paper, design verification and performance of PSD with heavy ion beam tests will be reported in detail.