1. Observation of radon mitigation in MicroBooNE by a liquid argon filtration system
- Author
-
MicroBooNE Collaboration, Abratenko, P., Anthony, J., Arellano, L., Asaadi, J., Ashkenazi, A., Balasubramanian, S., Baller, B., Barnes, C., Barr, G., Barrow, J., Basque, V., Bathe-Peters, L., Rodrigues, O. Benevides, Berkman, S., Bhanderi, A., Bhat, A., Bhattacharya, M., Bishai, M., Blake, A., Bolton, T., Book, J. Y., Camilleri, L., Caratelli, D., Terrazas, I. Caro, Cavanna, F., Cerati, G., Chen, Y., Cianci, D., Conrad, J. M., Convery, M., Cooper-Troendle, L., Crespo-Anadon, J. I., Del Tutto, M., Dennis, S. R., Detje, P., Devitt, A., Diurba, R., Dorrill, R., Duffy, K., Dytman, S., Eberly, B., Ereditato, A., Evans, J. J., Fine, R., Aguirre, G. A. Fiorentini, Fitzpatrick, R. S., Fleming, B. T., Foppiani, N., Franco, D., Furmanski, A. P., Garcia-Gamez, D., Gardiner, S., Ge, G., Gollapinni, S., Goodwin, O., Gramellini, E., Green, P., Greenlee, H., Gu, W., Guenette, R., Guzowski, P., Hagaman, L., Hen, O., Hilgenberg, C., Horton-Smith, G. A., Hourlier, A., Itay, R., James, C., Ji, X., Jiang, L., Jo, J. H., Joe, C., Johnson, R. A., Jwa, Y. J., Kalra, D., Kamp, N., Kaneshige, N., Karagiorgi, G., Ketchum, W., Kirby, M., Kobilarcik, T., Kreslo, I., Lepetic, I., Li, J. -Y., Li, K., Li, Y., Lin, K., Littlejohn, B. R., Louis, W. C., Luo, X., Manivannan, K., Mariani, C., Marsden, D., Marshall, J., Caicedo, D. A. Martinez, Mason, K., Mastbaum, A., McConkey, N., Meddage, V., Mettler, T., Miller, K., Mills, J., Mistry, K., Mohayai, T., Mogan, A., Mooney, M., Moor, A. F., Moore, C. D., Lepin, L. Mora, Mousseau, J., Babu, S. Mulleria, Naples, D., Navrer-Agasson, A., Nayak, N., Nebot-Guinot, M., Neely, R. K., Newmark, D. A., Nowak, J., Nunes, M., Palamara, O., Paolone, V., Papadopoulou, A., Papavassiliou, V., Parkinson, H. B., Pate, S. F., Patel, N., Paudel, A., Pavlovic, Z., Piasetzky, E., Ponce-Pinto, I., Prince, S., Qian, X., Raaf, J. L., Radeka, V., Rafique, A., Reggiani-Guzzo, M., Ren, L., Rice, L. C. J., Rochester, L., Rondon, J. Rodriguez, Rosenberg, M., Ross-Lonergan, M., von Rohr, C. Rudolph, Scanavini, G., Schmitz, D. W., Schukraft, A., Seligman, W., Shaevitz, M. H., Sharankova, R., Shi, J., Sinclair, J., Smith, A., Snider, E. L., Soderberg, M., Soldner-Rembold, S., Spentzouris, P., Spitz, J., Stancari, M., John, J. St., Strauss, T., Sutton, K., Sword-Fehlberg, S., Szelc, A. M., Tang, W., Terao, K., Thorpe, C., Torbunov, D., Totani, D., Toups, M., Tsai, Y. -T., Uchida, M. A., Usher, T., Viren, B., Weber, M., Wei, H., White, A. J., Williams, Z., Wolbers, S., Wongjirad, T., Wospakrik, M., Wresilo, K., Wright, N., Wu, W., Yandel, E., Yang, T., Yarbrough, G., Yates, L. E., Yu, H. W., Zeller, G. P., Zennamo, J., Zhang, C., and Zuckerbrot, M.
- Subjects
High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex) ,Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors ,Physics::Instrumentation and Detectors ,Counting-gas and liquid purification ,Gas systems and purification ,Time projection Chambers (TPC) ,FOS: Physical sciences ,Instrumentation and Detectors (physics.ins-det) ,Noble liquid detectors (scintillation, ionization, double-phase) ,Instrumentation ,Mathematical Physics ,High Energy Physics - Experiment - Abstract
Acknowledgments We gratefully acknowledge the discussions, feedback, and encouragement of Hugh Lippincott and Stephen Pordes throughout the course of the planning, execution, and analysis of our data. This documentwas prepared by the MicroBooNE collaboration using the resources of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), a U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, HEP User Facility. Fermilab is managed by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC (FRA), acting under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359. MicroBooNE is supported by the following: the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Offices of High Energy Physics and Nuclear Physics; the U.S. National Science Foundation; the Swiss National Science Foundation; the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), part of the United Kingdom Research and Innovation; the Royal Society (United Kingdom); and The European Union’s Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. Additional support for the laser calibration system and cosmic ray tagger was provided by the Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics, Bern, Switzerland. We also acknowledge the contributions of technical and scientific staff to the design, construction, and operation of the MicroBooNE detector as well as the contributions of past collaborators to the development of MicroBooNE analyses, without whom this work would not have been possible., he MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) maintains a high level of liquid argon purity through the use of a filtration system that removes electronegative contaminants in continuously-circulated liquid, recondensed boil off, and externally supplied argon gas. We use the MicroBooNE LArTPC to reconstruct MeV-scale radiological decays. Using this technique we measure the liquid argon filtration system's efficacy at removing radon. This is studied by placing a 500 kBq 222Rn source upstream of the filters and searching for a time-dependent increase in the number of radiological decays in the LArTPC. In the context of two models for radon mitigation via a liquid argon filtration system, a slowing mechanism and a trapping mechanism, MicroBooNE data supports a radon reduction factor of greater than 97% or 99.999%, respectively. Furthermore, a radiological survey of the filters found that the copper-based filter material was the primary medium that removed the 222Rn. This is the first observation of radon mitigation in liquid argon with a large-scale copper-based filter and could offer a radon mitigation solution for future large LArTPCs., Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, HEP User Facility, Fermi Research Alliance, LLC (FRA), acting under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359, Offices of High Energy Physics and Nuclear Physics, U.S. National Science Foundation, Swiss National Science Foundation, Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), United Kingdom Research and Innovation, Royal Society (United Kingdom), European Union’s Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics
- Published
- 2022