2015/03/24 by J. A. Klinger, J. Klinger, V. A. Kudryavtsev · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Amplitude #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Detector #Flux (metallurgy) #Modulation (music) #Muon #Neutron #Nuclear physics #Optics #Particle Detector Development and Performance #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #SIGNAL (programming language) #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.114.151301
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 114 (2015) 151301 · 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in PRL
arxiv created 2015/03/24 · openalex publication_date 2015/04/13 · arxiv updated 2015/04/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present an accurate model of the muon-induced background in the DAMA/LIBRA experiment. Our work challenges proposed mechanisms which seek to explain the observed DAMA signal modulation with muon-induced backgrounds. Muon generation and transport are performed using the MUSIC/MUSUN code, and subsequent interactions in the vicinity of the DAMA detector cavern are simulated with Geant4. We estimate the total muon-induced neutron flux in the detector cavern to be \mathrm\ensuremathΦn^\ensuremathν=1.0\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10^\ensuremath-9 cm^\ensuremath-2 s^\ensuremath-1. We predict 3.49\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10^\ensuremath-5 counts/day/kg/keV, which accounts for less than 0.3% of the DAMA signal modulation amplitude.