A. Fluka Study of Underground Cosmogenic Neutron Production

TL;DR

This study evaluates the FLUKA simulation code's accuracy in predicting underground cosmogenic neutron production by comparing it with existing data, aiding in designing better shielding for rare event detectors.

Contribution

It provides a detailed validation of FLUKA for simulating cosmogenic neutrons and applies it to model backgrounds in underground detectors.

Findings

FLUKA predictions align well with available data.

Simulations suggest effective shielding strategies.

Background rates can be reliably estimated using FLUKA.

Abstract

Neutrons produced by cosmic muon interactions are important contributors to backgrounds in underground detectors when searching for rare events. Typically such neutrons can dominate the background, as they are particularly difficult to shield and detect. Since actual data is sparse and not well documented, simulation studies must be used to design shields and predict background rates. Thus validation of any simulation code is necessary to assure reliable results. This work compares in detail the predictions of the FLUKA simulation code to existing data, and uses this code to report a simulation of cosmogenic backgrounds for typical detectors embedded in a water tank with liquid scintillator shielding.