Study of the muon-induced neutron background with the LVD detector

High energy neutrons, generated as a product of cosmic muon interaction in the rock or in the detector passive material, represent the most dangerous background for a large list of topics like reactor neutrino studies, the search for SN relic neutrinos, solar antineutrinos, etc.Up to now there are few measurements of the muon-produced neutron flux at large depth underground. Moreover it is difficult to reproduce the measured data with Monte Carlo simulation because of the large uncertainties in the neutron production and propagation models.We present here the results of such a measurement with the LVD detector, which is well suited for the detection of neutrons produced by cosmic-ray muons, reporting the neutron flux at various distances from the muon track, for different neutron energies (E > 20 MeV) and as a function of the muon track length in scintillator.