Neutron-induced background in the CONUS experiment

Understand

CONUS is a novel experiment aiming at detecting elastic neutrino nucleus scattering in the fully coherent regime using high-purity Germanium (Ge) detectors and a reactor as antineutrino ($\bar\nu$) source.

• The detector setup is installed at the commercial nuclear power plant in Brokdorf, Germany, at a very small distance to the reactor core in order to guarantee a high flux of more than 10$^{13}\bar\nu$/(s$\cdot$cm$^2$).
• For the experiment, a good understanding of neutron-induced background events is required, as the neutron recoil signals can mimic the predicted neutrino interactions.
• Especially neutron-induced events correlated with the thermal power generation are troublesome for CONUS.