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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 66: Neutrino Physics IV

T 66.4: Vortrag

Donnerstag, 19. März 2026, 17:00–17:15, AudiMax

Sensitivity studies for neutron flux measurements in the LEGEND experiment — •Loris Steinhart for the LEGEND collaboration — University of Tuebingen

Achieving the ambitious background goals of the next phase of the Large Enriched Germanium Experiment for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay (LEGEND) requires a precise understanding of neutron-induced backgrounds within the detector array. In this contribution, sensitivity studies for measuring the neutron flux in LEGEND are presented using a dedicated Gadolinium-loaded polyethylene (GdPE) string introduced into the experimental setup. Neutron captures on gadolinium produce characteristic signatures that can be identified via coincident energy depositions in the surrounding germanium detectors. By exploiting these correlations, neutron capture rates in the GdPE can be reconstructed and used to infer the neutron flux at the center of the detector array. This talk will discuss the underlying analysis strategy, simulation-based sensitivity estimates, and first experimental considerations, and will outline the relevance of this measurement for constraining neutron-related backgrounds and improving the overall sensitivity of LEGEND to the 0νββ decay search.

We acknowledge support from the DFG under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC 2094 (ORIGINS) and through the Sonderforschungsbereich SFB 1258. We acknowledge support by the BMFTR Verbundprojekt 05A2023 (LEGEND).

Keywords: LEGEND; neutron flux; gadolinium