2004/11/30 by H. M. Araújo, H. M. Araujo, V. A. Kudryavtsev +3 · 5 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Particle Detector Development and Performance #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #hep-ex
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.nima.2005.02.004
published as Nucl.Instrum.Meth. A545 (2005) 398-411 · (23 pages, 14 figures) To appear in Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A v2: Changes to format only; v3: Corrected typo in front matter; v4: Looked up additional experimental data for comparison with simulations
arxiv created 2005/02/04 · openalex publication_date 2005/04/02 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
We report on a comparison study of the Monte Carlo packages GEANT4 and FLUKA for simulating neutron production by muons penetrating deep underground. GEANT4 is found to generate fewer neutrons at muon energies above ~100 GeV, by at most a factor of 2 in some materials, which we attribute mainly to lower neutron production in hadronic cascades. As a practical case study, the muon-induced neutron background expected in a 250 kg liquid-xenon WIMP dark matter detector was calculated and good agreement was found for the recoil event rates. The detailed model of neutron elastic scattering in GEANT4 was also shown to influence the nuclear recoil spectrum observed in the target, which is presently a shortcoming of FLUKA. We conclude that both packages are suited for this type of simulation, although further improvements are desirable in both cases.