Evaluation of the neutron background in an HPGe target for WIMP direct detection when using a reactor neutrino detector as a neutron veto system

Abstract

A direct WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive Particle) detector with a neutron veto system is designed to better reject neutrons. An experimental configuration is studied in the present paper: 984 Ge modules are placed inside a reactor neutrino detector. In order to discriminate between nuclear and electron recoil, both ionization and heat signatures are measured using cryogenic germanium detectors in this detection. The neutrino detector is used as a neutron veto device.The neutron background for the experimental design has been estimated using the Geant4 simulation. The results show that the neutron background can decrease to O(0.01) events per year per tonne of high purity Germanium. We calculate the sensitivity to spin-independent WIMP-nucleon elastic scattering. An exposure of one tonne $\times$ year could reach a cross-section of about 2$\times$$10^{-11}$ pb.