ALMOND: An LNGS Mobile Neutron Detector

Environmental neutrons introduce a source of background to rare event searches, such as dark matter direct searches, neutrinoless double beta decay experiments and in cross section measurements for nuclear astrophysics, which take place in deep underground laboratories. The flux and spectrum of the ambient neutrons vary greatly with time and location. ALMOND is a mobile low-flux neutron spectrometer conceived for the LNGS underground laboratory. In this talk, we will present an overview of the design and construction of ALMOND as well as the calibration measurements performed at KIT and in Frascati, Italy. This project is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under the grant number 05A21VK1. We acknowledge the support by S. Loreti and his colleagues from the Frascati Neutron Generator (FNG) facility.