P. Vojtyla et al., EXPERIMENTAL AND SIMULATED COSMIC MUON INDUCED BACKGROUND OF A GE SPECTROMETER EQUIPPED WITH A TOP SIDE ANTICOINCIDENCE PROPORTIONAL CHAMBER, Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section B, Beam interactions with materials and atoms, 86(3-4), 1994, pp. 380-386
Background of a well-type ground-based low-level high purity germanium
spectrometer was reduced using a single top side anticoincidence prop
ortional chamber. The chamber suppressed the total background (40-1500
keV) of 34 cpm by a factor of 2.2. To assess the efficiency of the an
ticoincidence chamber in reducing the cosmic muon induced background M
onte Carlo simulations were done using GEANT3. With the sea-level cosm
ic muon flux distribution, a total muon induced background of 47 cpm (
0-1500 keV) and a background reduction factor of 4.2 were computed. Go
od agreement between the measured and simulated spectra was obtained.
Some general features of the background induction by muons are discuss
ed. Muons with momenta from about 1 to 10 GeV/c contribute mostly to t
he background. For muons with momenta below 1 GeV/c the muon decay is
the most contributing mechanism.