Bonn 2010 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 36: Postersitzung

HK 36.29: Poster

Mittwoch, 17. März 2010, 14:00–16:00, HG Aula

Upper limit of ⁸³Rb release into the gas phase from a ^83mKr calibration source for the XENON project — Elena Aprile¹, Francesco Arneodo², Laura Baudis³, Marcus Beck⁴, Alfredo D. Ferella³, Karl Giboni¹, Volker Hannen⁴, •Karen Hugenberg⁴, Raphael F. Lang¹, Ondrej Lebeda⁵, Antonin Spalek⁵, Drahos Venos⁵, and Christian Weinheimer⁴ — ¹Columbia University, USA — ²Gran Sasso National Laboratory LNGS, Italy — ³Zurich University, Switzerland — ⁴Institut für Kernphysik, WWU Münster, Germany — ⁵Nuclear Physics Institute, ASCR, Rez, Czech Republic

The isomer ^83mKr with its half-life of 1.83 h is an ideal calibration source for a liquid noble gas dark matter experiment like the XENON project. For such a low counting experiment the possibility that traces of the much longer living mother isotop ⁸³Rb (t_1/2 = 86.2 d) contaminate the detector must be avoided. In this work the ⁸³Rb release of a 1.8 MBq strong ⁸³Rb source embedded in zeolite spheres has been investigated by searching for the characteristic ⁸³Rb γ lines with the ultra-sensitive germanium detector Gator at LNGS after collecting a possible ⁸³Rb release in a cryogenic trap for about 10 days. No signal has been found. The corresponding upper limit for the ⁸³Rb release of 200 µBq means, that such a ⁸³Rb source as ^83mKr generator can be used at the XENON project as well as for the KATRIN experiment. The germanium detector also allowed to set upper limits on the possible release of the isotopes ⁸⁴Rb and ⁸⁶Rb, which were produced during the ⁸³Rb production at the Rez cyclotron to some amount.