Characterization of plastic scintillators equipped with SiPM for the next generation of satellites for the study of cosmic radiation

The next generation of satellite experiments for the studies of cosmic radiation will be equipped with plastic scintillators read-out by Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs), to be used as anti-coincidence detectors for gamma rays or for the identification of charged nuclei. For these applications, a high detection efficiency is required in order to ensure a high background rejection for the gamma-ray identification. The read-out design based on SiPM and the segmented geometry is one of the main aspects that can be optimized to reach this goal. During 2018 we performed a beam test campaign at the CERN PS and SPS to study the performance of a prototype of plastic scintillator tile equipped with a set of SiPMs with a beam of electrons and pions.