creator Draeger, Emily advisor White, Christopher Spallation neutrons produced from cosmic ray muons are a major source of backgrounds in underground physics experiments. Experiments have been done to study spallation neutron production and yield, but our understanding of these processes is still limited. There are various interactions that can produce spallation neutrons. Most of these production mechanisms are fairly well understood; much of the uncertainty in our understanding of spallation neutrons lies in mechanisms such as virtual photon exchange and the assumptions used to calculate the photonuclear cross section. Even the experiments that have been carried out do not agree with each other or theoretical calculations. Spallation neutron production mechanisms are discussed, as well as a new experiment to study spallation neutrons. The impact of this study on current and future underground physics experiments is also explored. Submitted by Liana Khananashvili (khananashvili@iit.edu) on 2014-11-06T19:35:12Z No. of bitstreams: 1 thesis.pdf: 10971326 bytes, checksum: 08cb15bdd3535083b181f1d11bd671f4 (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2014-11-06T19:35:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 thesis.pdf: 10971326 bytes, checksum: 08cb15bdd3535083b181f1d11bd671f4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-05 PH.D in Physics, May 2014 2014 2014-05 http://hdl.handle.net/10560/3331 en Dissertation born digital application/pdf In Copyright http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/ Restricted Access PHYS / Physics Illinois Institute of Technology Affiliated department