A novel 83mKr tracer method for characterizing xenon gas and cryogenic distillation systems
Abstract
The radioactive isomer 83mKr has many properties that make it very useful for various applications. Its low energy decay products, like conversion, shake-off and Auger electrons as well as X- and γ-rays are used for calibration purposes in neutrino mass experiments and direct dark matter detection experiments. Thanks to the short half-life of 1.83 h and the decay to the ground state 83Kr, one does not risk contamination of any low-background experiment with long- lived radionuclides. In this paper, we present two new applications of 83mKr. It can be used as a radioactive tracer in noble gases to characterize the particle flow inside of gas routing systems. A method of doping 83mKr into xenon gas and its detection, using special custom-made detectors, based on a photomultiplier tube, is described. This technique has been used to determine the circulation speed of gas particles inside of a gas purification system for xenon. Furthermore, 83m Kr can be used to rapidly estimate separation performance of a distillation system.
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