https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-018-6079-3
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
Virtual depth by active background suppression: revisiting the cosmic muon induced background of Gerda Phase II
1
Physik Department E15, Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany
2
INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, Catania, Italy
* e-mail: christoph.wiesinger@tum.de
Received:
14
February
2018
Accepted:
16
July
2018
Published online:
25
July
2018
In-situ production of radioisotopes by cosmic muon interactions may generate a non-negligible background for deep underground rare event searches. Previous Monte Carlo studies for the Gerda experiment at Lngs identified the delayed decays of 
Ge and its metastable state 
Ge as dominant cosmogenic background in the search for neutrinoless double beta decay of 
Ge. This might limit the sensitivity of next generation experiments aiming for increased Ge mass at background-free conditions and thereby define a minimum depth requirement. A re-evaluation of the 
Ge background for the Gerda experiment has been carried out by a set of Monte Carlo simulations. The obtained Ge production rate is (
) nuclei/(kg
year). After application of state-of-the-art active background suppression techniques and simple delayed coincidence cuts this corresponds to a background contribution of 
cts/(keVkgyear). The suppression achieved by this strategy equals an effective muon flux reduction of more than one order of magnitude. This virtual depth increase opens the way for next generation rare event searches.
© The Author(s), 2018
