title: On the use of (127)Xe standards for the quality control of CTBTO noble gas stations and support laboratories.
abstract: (127)Xe has a longer half-life than (131m)Xe, it can be easily purely produced and it is present in the environment at very low level. For these reasons, (127)Xe is supposed to be a convenient quality control radionuclide for remote noble gas stations of the International Monitoring System (IMS) network. As CEA/DAM has recently developed two new photon/electron setups for low-level detection of (131m)Xe, (133m)Xe, (133)Xe and (135)Xe, we took the opportunity to test these setups for the measurement of a (127)Xe standard. The results and a detailed description of these measurements are presented in this paper. They illustrate the complexity of (127)Xe decay, emitting simultaneously several γ, X-rays, conversion electrons and Auger electrons; this results in highly summated coincidence spectra. The measurements performed provide precise electron energy calibration of the setups. The count rate of electrons in coincidence with iodine Kα X-rays was found to be surprisingly low, leading to the study of electron-gated photon spectrum. Finally, a comparison of three photon/electron coincidence spectra obtained with three different setups is given. The use of (127)Xe as a standard for energy calibration of IMS noble gas station is possible, but it appears to be quite complicated for efficiency check of noble gas station equipped with β/γ detectors.
authors.affiliation: CEA, DAM, DIF, F-91297 Arpajon, France. Electronic address: antoine.cagniant@cea.fr.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cagniant
authors.affiliation: CEA, DAM, DIF, F-91297 Arpajon, France.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Le Petit
authors.affiliation: Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, Provisional Technical Secretariat, P.O. Box 1200, 1400 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Nadalut
authors.affiliation: CEA, DAM, DIF, F-91297 Arpajon, France.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gross
authors.affiliation: CEA, DAM, DIF, F-91297 Arpajon, France.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Richard-Bressand
authors.affiliation: CEA, DAM, DIF, F-91297 Arpajon, France.
authors.forename: J-P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Fontaine
authors.affiliation: CEA, DAM, DIF, F-91297 Arpajon, France.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Douysset
keywords: (127)xenon; CTBTO; Photon/electron coincidence