학술논문

Cosmogenic neutron production at Daya Bay
Document Type
article
Source
PHYSICAL REVIEW D. 97(5)
Subject
hep-ex
physics.ins-det
Language
Abstract
Neutrons produced by cosmic ray muons are an important background forunderground experiments studying neutrino oscillations, neutrinoless doublebeta decay, dark matter, and other rare-event signals. A measurement of theneutron yield in the three different experimental halls of the Daya Bay ReactorNeutrino Experiment at varying depth is reported. The neutron yield in DayaBay's liquid scintillator is measured to be $Y_n=(10.26\pm 0.86)\times10^{-5}$, $(10.22\pm 0.87)\times 10^{-5}$, and $(17.03\pm 1.22)\times10^{-5}~\mu^{-1}~$g$^{-1}~$cm$^2$ at depths of 250, 265, and 860meters-water-equivalent. These results are compared to other measurements andthe simulated neutron yield in Fluka and Geant4. A global fit including theDaya Bay measurements yields a power law coefficient of $0.77 \pm 0.03$ for thedependence of the neutron yield on muon energy.