Measuring cosmogenic Li9 background in a reactor neutrino experiment

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to measure the background caused by cosmogenic isotopes 9Li and 8He in reactor neutrino experiments, which is crucial for accurate neutrino oscillation measurements.

Contribution

A new technique is developed to quantify 9Li and 8He backgrounds using the time distribution since last muon, effective at low background-to-signal ratios.

Findings

Effective for muon rates up to 20 Hz

Accurately estimates 9Li/8He background levels

Improves background subtraction in neutrino experiments

Abstract

Cosmogenic isotopes 9Li and 8He produced in the detector are the most problematic background in the reactor neutrino experiments designed to determine precisely the neutrino mixing angle theta13. The average time interval of cosmic-ray muons in the detector is often on the order of the lifetimes of the 9Li and 8He isotopes. We have developed a method for determining this kind of background from the distribution of time since last muon for muon rate up to about 20 Hz when the background-to-signal ratio is small, on the order of a few percents.