Benchmarks and applications of the nuclear deexcitation event generator nucdeex

Neutron multiplicity is a key observable in recent neutrino experiments that can enhance the sensitivity of various neutrino physics searches. Nuclear deexcitation plays a significant role in neutron emissions associated with neutrino-nucleus interactions. Therefore, precise prediction of this process is essential. To address this need, a general-purpose nuclear deexcitation event generator ucex was developed and released as an open-source package. The treatment of low-lying discrete excited states was updated to better reproduce experimental data. Benchmarks were conducted using existing nuclear deexcitation event generators and experimental data. Application to other simulators, neutrino event generator and general particle simulation tool eant4, are also presented.