Cosmic radiation induced backgrounds for low-background experiments I.Abt, May 2023 ==================================================================== Consider Ge 0nubb and crystral based Dark Matter searches 0vubb DM ___________________________________________________________________________________ relevant energy 2 MeV (Ge) MeV range keV range (crystal searches) ___________________________________________________________________________________ surface: before deployment 60Co (5.3y) 68Ge (270d) 65 Zn (244d) 68Ge (270d) Tr (12.3y) in germanium enriched in 76Ge natural beta beta atoms/kg/day pred 2.6 23 79 190 53 no shield arxiv:1706.0532 other pred/data vary by factor or 2~3 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1342/1/012089 106+13 >71 82+-21 in copper 60Co from 63Co+n --> 60Co + alpha peak x-section 13 MeV atoms/kg/day 86 +-8 PNNL-21696/Laubenstein+Heusser ==> cut down surface exposure and try to shield and wait. __________________________________________________________________________________ in general: to create something close by (far away) from original element you need a slow neutron (a process destroying the original nucleus) __________________________________________________________________________________ underground: high energy MUONS Everything that happens above ground can happen create showers down at the experiment depending on the rate of with gammas muons. and neutrons Muon vetos detect muons in the close vicinity. But showers can come from the walls of laboratories. In addition there are metastable/radioactive states that might decay days/months/years/later ==> go down as deep as you can --> see flux in underground_flux_cpc.... Tritium special case 14N + n --> 12C + Tr stratosphere wandering down, nasty background for DM searches 3.5kg Tritium in Biosphere 18.5keV negligible for 0vubb 99% in upper ocean layers can also be created in direct pN interactions ==> think about LN shields for DM searches. Everything else No data base contains all metastable states of all elements. No data base knows about all contaminations of all materials. --------------------------0vubb----------------------------DM-------------------- NEUTRINOS solar neutrinos extend to 8 MeV known as the neutrino floor they could create via CC a 2 MeV e to be reached in next [% level of LEGEND bckgr.budget] generation experiments NC vu e --> vu e can create mostly solar neutrinos electron [all low E neutrinos] vu[high E] N --> showers like muons Might be negligible but do not know ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DM If it scatters only on If a detector looks for 0nubb electrons? Like neutrinos, 0nubb it is automatically if it leaves a 2 MeV recoil affected 2nubb. in a detector, which cannot [not cosmogenic] distinguish recoils from electrons __________________________________________________________________________________