Background events in the energy region below 4 MeV detected with a 208 cm3 intrinsic germanium detector

A detailed study of the events recorded with a 208 cm 3 intrinsic germanium γ-ray detector produced by interactions of natural environmental radiation was undertaken. In the first part of this work, the data on events from characteristic radioactivity are analysed to optimise the shielding requirements for reducing the γ-ray background as seen by the detector. A thickness of 15 cm of Pb all around the detector in the laboratory location, or only 5 cm in the underground location at the mine, is found to be sufficient to attenuate the event rates from environmental characteristic γ-rays to less than the event rates from intrinsic contamination of the detector components in the detector assembly. The salt mine is found to be a natural environment low in γ-ray background.