Development of a spatial resolving scintillator readout system - "MIP-Cube"

High-energy muons from extensive air-showers, originated in the interaction between cosmic rays and the Earth's atmosphere, can propagate to Earth or even into low-noise facilities, like underground research laboratories and contribute to the noise level of experiments. By measuring the flux and spatial distribution of these muons, systematic background effects can be studied. For this purpose, a monitoring system based on a net of crossed 20 cm long and 5 cm wide plastic scintillator bars is in development. The foreseen scintillator system presented here will be readout by Hamamatsu 64-channel Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM) arrays and are based on detectors developed for the surface instrumentation of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. The baseline design provides a highly mobile detector system, with an adequate power supply and signal where focus will be given on a plug-and-play setup for variable measuring locations. The CAEN Co. Ltd Front-End units DT5202 or DT5203 as SiPM array readout and trigger electronic unit is one of the candidates. This contribution includes R&D efforts towards an appropriate data acquisition (DAQ) system, the foreseen detector design and the concept for front-end readout electronics.