Mainz 2014 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help

T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 56: Dunkle Materie 3

T 56.3: Talk

Tuesday, March 25, 2014, 17:20–17:35, P11

Final results of a 3-year measurement of muon-induced neutrons at LSM — •Valentin Kozlov for the EDELWEISS collaboration — Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Institut für Kernphysik, Postfach 3640, 76021 Karlsruhe

In direct Dark Matter searches special attention is payed to ambient and muon-induced neutron background, since neutrons may mimic a Dark Matter signal. We present a measurement of muon-induced neutrons performed in 2009-2012 in an underground laboratory, Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane (LSM, France). The setup was based on 1m³ of Gd-loaded liquid scintillator with 10-cm lead layer underneath. The final results of the studies will be the main focus of the presentation and include development of the appropriate Monte-Carlo model based on GEANT4 and the analysis of the 1000-days measurement campaign. We find a good agreement between measured rates of muon-induced neutrons and those predicted by the developed model with full event topology. We also compare our results with similar measurements, e.g. from ZEPLIN-III, and discuss impact of muon-induced background on current EDELWEISS data-taking as well as for next generation Dark Matter experiments.

This work is supported in part by the German ministry of science and education (BMBF Verbundforschung ATP Proj.-Nr. 05A11VK2), by the Helmholtz Alliance for Astroparticle Physics (HAP), and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant No. 07-02-00355-a).