Discrimination of Neutrons and γ-rays in Liquid Scintillators Based on Fuzzy c-Means Clustering

A novel method based on fuzzy c-means （FCM） clustering for the discrimination of neutrons and γ-rays in liquid scintillators was presented. The neutrons and γ-rays in the environment were firstly acquired by the portable real-time n-γ discriminator and then discriminated using fuzzy c-means clustering and pulse gradient analysis, respectively. By comparing the results with each other, it is shown that the discrimination results of the fuzzy c-means clustering are consistent with those of the pulse gradient analysis. The decrease in uncertainty and the improvement in discrimination performance of the fuzzy c-means clustering were also observed.