학술논문
Experimental study of 13C({\alpha},n)16O reactions in the Majorana Demonstrator calibration data
Document Type
Working Paper
Author
MAJORANA Collaboration; Arnquist, I. J.; Avignone III, F. T.; Barabash, A. S.; Barton, C. J.; Bhimani, K. H.; Blalock, E.; Bos, B.; Busch, M.; Buuck, M.; Caldwell, T. S.; Chan, Y-D.; Christofferson, C. D.; Chu, P. -H.; Clark, M. L.; Cuesta, C.; Detwiler, J. A.; Efremenko, Yu.; Ejiri, H.; Elliott, S. R.; Giovanetti, G. K.; Green, M. P.; Gruszko, J.; Guinn, I. S.; Guiseppe, V. E.; Haufe, C. R.; Henning, R.; Aguilar, D. Hervas; Hoppe, E. W.; Hostiuc, A.; Kidd, M. F.; Kim, I.; Kouzes, R. T.; Lannen V, T. E.; Li, A.; Lopez, A. M.; Lopez-Castano, J. M.; Martin, E. L.; Martin, R. D.; Massarczyk, R.; Meijer, S. J.; Oli, T. K.; Othman, G.; Paudel, L. S.; Pettus, W.; Poon, A. W. P.; Radford, D. C.; Reine, A. L.; Rielage, K.; Ruof, N. W.; Tedeschi, D.; Varner, R. L.; Vasilyev, S.; Wilkerson, J. F.; Wiseman, C.; Xu, W.; Yu, C. -H.; Zhu, B. X.
Source
Physical Review C 105, 064610 (2022)
Subject
Language
Abstract
Neutron captures and delayed decays of reaction products are common sources of backgrounds in ultra-rare event searches. In this work, we studied $^{13}$C($\alpha,n)^{16}$O reactions induced by $\alpha$-particles emitted within the calibration sources of the \textsc{Majorana Demonstrator}. These sources are thorium-based calibration standards enclosed in carbon-rich materials. The reaction rate was estimated by using the 6129-keV $\gamma$-rays emitted from the excited $^{16}$O states that are populated when the incoming $\alpha$-particles exceed the reaction Q-value. Thanks to the excellent energy performance of the \textsc{Demonstrator}'s germanium detectors, these characteristic photons can be clearly observed in the calibration data. Facilitated by \textsc{Geant4} simulations, a comparison between the observed 6129-keV photon rates and predictions by a TALYS-based software was performed. The measurements and predictions were found to be consistent, albeit with large statistical uncertainties. This agreement provides support for background projections from ($\alpha,n$)-reactions in future double-beta decay search efforts.
Comment: Published version
Comment: Published version