We report a quantitative analysis of the background contribution from natural radioactive impurities (238U and 232Th decay chains) in the quartz housing of a prototype detector with a volume of several liters and a liquid neodymium-loaded organic scintillator. The study involved Monte Carlo simulations using the experimentally measured detector energy resolution. It is shown that the background in the region of interest for the neutrinoless double beta (0ν2β) decay of 150Nd is consistent with the simulation results for the contributions from the 238U and 232Th chains. The projected sensitivity of the experiment to the half-life of neutrinoless double beta decay is calculated. The results are presented in tables and graphs.
Veresnikova et al. (Sun,) studied this question.