Scintillating thermal neutron detectors for cosmic ray soil moisture monitoring

Cosmic Ray Neutron Sensing (CRNS) is a powerful technique that allows non-invasive monitoring of soil moisture on length scales well matched for agricultural applications. One factor limiting the use within industrial agriculture settings high initial cost Helium-3 or BF3 tubes typically used ground level neutron monitoring. This paper discusses Geant4 to optimise an alternative scintillator based detector may be applicable challenges where higher driving than temporal resolution.