Behavior of light and dark scattered neutrons in MoNA bars in comparison with simulation

The Modular Neutron Array (MoNA) is a high-efficiency neutron detector and powerful tool for studying exotic nuclei approaching the neutron dripline. In order to test and improve the simulation of nuclear interactions imperative to this study, the MoNA Collaboration has performed experiments at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) and observed neutron scattering using sixteen BC-408 plastic scintillator detectors exposed to a well-characterized neutron beam of ranging energies. A previous experiment using the MoNA bars featured compact detector geometry and resulted in disagreement between two simulation packages (Geant4 and Menate_R) and experimental data. It also provoked the need to improve understanding of dark scattering, or elastic scattering from carbon nuclei that produces insufficient light for detector thresholds. In this experiment the MoNA bars were reconfigured into a staircase array and target bar with the goal of increased angular resolution and bar separation required to estimate the location of the first hit in dark scattering. Features of neutron scattering, such as angular distributions, hit multiplicities, and energies of the scattered neutrons were analyzed and compared with simulation and will be presented.