The characteristics of a low background germanium gamma ray spectrometer at China JinPing Underground Laboratory

Zhi Zeng; Yuhao Mi; Hao Ma; Jianping Cheng; Jian Su; Qian Yue

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2014.05.022

The characteristics of a low background germanium gamma ray spectrometer at China JinPing Underground Laboratory

Appl Radiat Isot. 2014 Sep:91:165-70. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2014.05.022. Epub 2014 Jun 2.

Authors

Zhi Zeng¹, Yuhao Mi¹, Hao Ma², Jianping Cheng¹, Jian Su¹, Qian Yue¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Particle and Radiation Imaging (Ministry of Education) and Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
² Key Laboratory of Particle and Radiation Imaging (Ministry of Education) and Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. Electronic address: mahao@tsinghua.edu.cn.

PMID: 24950199
DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2014.05.022

Abstract

A low background germanium gamma ray spectrometer, GeTHU, has been installed at China JinPing Underground Laboratory (CJPL). The integral background count rate of the spectrometer was 0.629 cpm between 40 and 2700 keV, the origins of which were studied by Monte Carlo simulation. Detection limits and efficiencies were calculated for selected gamma peaks. Some samples of rare event experiments were measured and (137)Cs contamination was found in boric acid. GeTHU will be mainly used to measure environmental samples and screen materials in dark matter and double beta decay experiments.

Keywords: CJPL; Germanium spectrometer; Low-background.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't