Evaluation of the Neutron Background in a Direct WIMP Detector with Neutron Veto System Based on Gd-doped Liquid Scintillator

Abstract

A direct WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive Particle) detector with a neutron veto system is designed to better reject neutrons. Two experimental configurations are studied in the present paper: one is for an Xe detector enclosed in a Gd-loaded scintillator and the other one is for an Xe detector placed inside a reactor neutrino detector. The Gd-doped liquid scintillator (or the neutrino detector) is used as a neutron veto device. The neutron backgrounds for the two experimental designs have been estimated using Geant4 simulations. The results show that the neutron backgrounds can decrease to O(0.1) events per year per tonne of liquid Xenon. We calculate the sensitivities to spin-independent WIMP-nucleon elastic scattering. An exposure of one tonne $\times$ year could reach a cross-section of about 6$\times$$10^{-11}$ pb.