I will present an overview of the Majorana experiment, with particular
emphasis on our work studying neutron interactions in shielding and detector
materials. The Majorana experiment is studying neutrinoless double-beta
decay in Ge-76 using an array of HPGe detectors. As with similar double
beta decay experiment, the success of the experiment relies on reducing the
intrinsic radioactive background to unprecedented levels, while adequately
shielding the detectors from external sources of radioactivity. An understanding
of the potential for neutron excitation of the shielding and detector
materials is important for obtaining this level of sensitivity. Using the broadspectrum neutron beam at LANSCE, we have measured the inelastic neutron
scattering from Cu-nat, Ge-nat, and Pb-nat. The goal of this work is focused on
measuring the background rates from these materials in regions around the
Q-values of many candidate 0nu2beta decay isotopes, as well as providing data for
benchmarking Monte Carlo simulations of background events. I will present
some preliminary results from our analysis, and discuss the implications of
our findings for Majorana as well as other neutrinoless double beta decay
experiments.