Speaker
Description
The in-situ production of long-lived radioactive isotopes by cosmic muons can constitute a significant background in the search for rare events deep underground unless appropriate mitigation strategies are applied [1,2]. The delayed decay of $^{77(m)}$Ge is the primary cosmogenic contributor for the $^{76}$Ge-based neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment LEGEND. This talk presents the Geant4 simulation used to investigate the production mechanism of $^{77(m)}$Ge via the capture of muon-induced neutrons for this experiment. We studied the physics relevant to production and improved Geant4's neutron physics based on recent measurements and models [3,4]. Furthermore, we used the simulation output to identify a production event and how it can be used for background rejection.
[1] C. Wiesinger et al., Eur. Phys. J. C (2018) 78: 597
[2] M. Neuberger et al., PoS TAUP2023 (2024) 278
[3] A. Gawlik-Ramięga et al. (n_TOF Collaboration) Phys. Rev. C 104, 044610
[4] P. Grabmayr, submitted to EPJA
