Development of a Detector Prototype for future High Energy Gamma Ray Experiments

Future high energy gamma ray experiments propose a rich physics program ranging from understanding the particle accelerators, detecting very high energy gamma ray bursts,and probing new physics beyond the Standard Model. Water Cherenkov detectors with photomultiplier tubes have been the traditional detector technology owning to the large sizes the photomultiplier tubes can be manifactured, hence higher light yields. The drawbacks of these devices is their higher voltage of operation and a small number of manifacturers. Silicon photomultipliers are the solid-state equivalents which operate at lower voltage with large number of vendors producing them. The main drawbacks of SiPMs is their small surface area and higher dark rate. We constructed a Cherenkov detector prototype readout by silicon photomultipliers as an alternative to traditional detectors. In order to circumvent the silicon photomultipliers small area we used a light-trap and wavelength shifting block to increase light collection efficiency.