Flux-averaged cross sections for cosmogenic-neutron activation of natural
tellurium were measured using a neutron beam containing neutrons of kinetic
energies up to ∼800 MeV, and having an energy spectrum similar to that of
cosmic-ray neutrons at sea-level. Analysis of the radioisotopes produced
reveals that 110mAg will be a dominant contributor to the cosmogenic-activation
background in experiments searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay of
130Te, such as CUORE and SNO+. An estimate of the cosmogenic-activation
background in the CUORE experiment has been obtained using the results of this
measurement and cross-section measurements of proton activation of tellurium.
Additionally, the measured cross sections in this work are also compared with
results from semi-empirical cross-section calculations.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure
