Neutron sensitivity of the endcap RPC modules in Belle detector

The primary purpose in the Belle experiment at the asymmetric-energy e/sup =/e/sup -/ collider at the High-Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK B factory) is the measurement of charge conjugation and parity (CP) violation in B meson decays. The K/sub L/ mesons and muons (KLM) detector was designed to identify K/sub L/ʹs and muons in this experiment. Since October 2001, the luminosity in the KEK B accelerator has been remarkably improved. The data on B meson decay are successfully collected in the Belle detector. In contrast with the high luminosity operations of the accelerator, however, the high background rate leading to a lower detection efficiency has been observed in the endcap KLM detector. For present and future high luminosity operations, we have to identify the background source and consider the shielding. To identify the background source, the background data sampled from e/sup +/e/sup -/(mu)/sup +/(mu)/sup -/ events were investigated and the simulations of the sensitivity of the endcap KLM detector to neutrons and (gamma)ʹs as the background sources were performed using the Geant4 simulation toolkit. The comparisons of the simulations with the experimental data are presented.