Speaker
Mr
Steven Boi
(Northern Illinois University)
Description
The Mu2e experiment will search for a neutrino-less muon to electron conversion process with a sensitivity improvement of almost four orders of magnitude to the current best limit. In order to achieve this designed sensitivity, backgrounds to the neutrino-less conversion process must be well understood. One important background is caused by the decays or interactions of cosmic ray muons faking the conversion electron signal. As such, the Mu2e experiment will employ a cosmic ray veto (CRV) system. This system, a four-layered plastic scintillator detector with an area of almost 300m2, surrounds the experiment’s detector components. To meet the designed sensitivity, the CRV system needs an efficiency of at least 99.99%. One challenge the CRV system faces is the large neutron and gamma fluxes present in the experimental hall, produced by beam interactions. This radiation damages the detector components and generates background noise in the CRV. We estimate the noise and total experiment dead-time caused by the radiation backgrounds in the CRV using a Geant4 based simulation which includes a complete Mu2e experiment geometry and realistic CRV response.
Primary author
Mr
Steven Boi
(Northern Illinois University)