${}^{222}$Rn emanation measurements for the XENON1T experiment

Abstract

The selection of low-radioactive construction materials is of utmost importance for the success of low-energy rare event search experiments. Besides radioactive contaminants in the bulk, the emanation of radioactive radon atoms from material surfaces attains increasing relevance in the effort to further reduce the background of such experiments. In this work, we present the ${}^{222}$Rn emanation measurements performed for the XENON1T dark matter experiment. Together with the bulk impurity screening campaign, the results enabled us to select the radio-purest construction materials, targeting a ${}^{222}$Rn activity concentration of 10 $\mu$Bq/kg in 3.2 t of xenon. The knowledge of the distribution of the ${}^{222}$Rn sources allowed us to selectively eliminate critical components in the course of the experiment. The predictions from the emanation measurements were compared to data of the ${}^{222}$Rn activity concentration in XENON1T. The final ${}^{222}$Rn activity concentration of (4.5 $\pm$ 0.1) $\mu$Bq/kg in the target of XENON1T is the lowest ever achieved in a xenon dark matter experiment.

arXiv comment14 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (15)

• First Dark Matter Search Results from the XENON1T Experiment
• Excess Electronic Recoil Events in XENON1T
• Galactic Searches for Dark Matter
• Design and Performance of the XENON10 Dark Matter Experiment
• Lowering the radioactivity of the photomultiplier tubes for the XENON1T dark matter experiment
• Removing krypton from xenon by cryogenic distillation to the ppq level
• Material radioassay and selection for the XENON1T dark matter experiment
• Measurements of the ion fraction and mobility of alpha and beta decay products in liquid xenon using EXO-200
• Supermassive dark-matter Q-balls in galactic centers?
• Online ${}^{222}$Rn removal by cryogenic distillation in the XENON100 experiment
• A Rn-220 source for the calibration of low-background experiments
• Intrinsic backgrounds from Rn and Kr in the XENON100 experiment
• Radon depletion in xenon boil-off gas
• A magnetically-driven piston pump for ultra-clean applications
• Magnetically-coupled piston pump for high-purity gas applications

Cited by in corpus (18)

• Excess Electronic Recoil Events in XENON1T
• A Next-Generation Liquid Xenon Observatory for Dark Matter and Neutrino Physics
• The XENONnT Dark Matter Experiment
• Double-Weak Decays of ${}^{124}$Xe and ${}^{136}$Xe in the XENON1T and XENONnT Experiments
• Liquid-phase purification for multi-tonne xenon detectors
• Kiloton-scale xenon detectors for neutrinoless double beta decay and other new physics searches
• The XLZD Design Book: Towards the Next-Generation Liquid Xenon Observatory for Dark Matter and Neutrino Physics
• Design and Commissioning of the PandaX-4T Cryogenic Distillation System for Krypton and Radon Removal
• Measurement of ambient radon progeny decay rates and energy spectra in liquid argon using the MicroBooNE detector
• The XeBRA platform for liquid xenon time projection chamber development
• Reduction of ${}^{222}$Rn-induced Backgrounds in a Hermetic Dual-Phase Xenon Time Projection Chamber
• Characterization of a ${}^{220}$Rn source for low-energy electronic recoil calibration of the XENONnT detector
• Production and characterization of a ${}^{222}$Rn-emanating stainless steel source
• Cryogenic bath-type heat exchangers for ultra-pure noble gas applications
• Status and Perspectives of Neutrino Physics
• Radon emanation rate measurements using liquid scintillation counting
• Ultra-clean radon-free four cylinder magnetically-coupled piston pump
• Design and Experimental Application of a Radon Diffusion Chamber for Determining Diffusion Coefficients in Membrane Materials