Conan Bock Talk

The COHERENT collaboration studies Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering (CEvNS) with high-quality pion-decay-at-rest neutrinos from the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge National Lab, Tennessee. Through CEvNS detection we can know more about the properties of neutrinos and nuclei. Neutrons that survive thick shielding between the source and COHERENT detectors are a serious background for CEvNS detection. A dedicated neutron detector, MARS, is used to monitor this background. The performance of this detector has been characterized using various radioactive sources, including a DT neutron generator. Two Geant4 Monte Carlo simulation packages were used to evaluate the efficiency of neutron detection of MARS, which can be used to estimate the neutron flux and the energy spectrum in Neutrino Alley, where neutrino detectors of COHERENT are located. The measured flux and spectrum can then be used to estimate the influence of the beam-related neutrons to the neutrino detection.

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