  While cosmic ray muons themselves are relatively easy to veto in underground
detectors, their interactions with nuclei create more insidious backgrounds
via: (i) the decays of long-lived isotopes produced by muon-induced spallation
reactions inside the detector, (ii) spallation reactions initiated by fast
muon-induced neutrons entering from outside the detector, and (iii) nuclear
recoils initiated by fast muon-induced neutrons entering from outside the
detector. These backgrounds, which are difficult to veto or shield against, are
very important for solar, reactor, dark matter, and other underground
experiments, especially as increased sensitivity is pursued. We used fluka to
calculate the production rates and spectra of all prominent secondaries
produced by cosmic ray muons, in particular focusing on secondary neutrons, due
to their importance. Since the neutron spectrum is steeply falling, the total
neutron production rate is sensitive just to the relatively soft neutrons, and
not to the fast-neutron component. We show that the neutron spectrum in the
range between 10 and 100 MeV can instead be probed by the (n, p)-induced
isotope production rates 12C(n, p)12B and 16O(n, p)16N in oil- and water-based
detectors. The result for 12B is in good agreement with the recent KamLAND
measurement. Besides testing the calculation of muon secondaries, these results
are also of practical importance, since 12B (T1/2 = 20.2 ms, Q = 13.4 MeV) and
16N (T1/2 = 7.13 s, Q = 10.4 MeV) are among the dominant spallation backgrounds
in these detectors.
