Journal of Instrumentation

paper

Observation of radon mitigation in MicroBooNE by a liquid argon filtration system

P. Abratenko³⁴, J. Anthony⁴, L. Arellano¹⁹, J. Asaadi³³, A. Ashkenazi³¹, S. Balasubramanian¹¹, B. Baller¹¹, C. Barnes²¹, G. Barr²⁴, J. Barrow^20,31, V. Basque¹¹, L. Bathe-Peters¹³, O. Benevides Rodrigues³⁰, S. Berkman¹¹, A. Bhanderi¹⁹, A. Bhat³⁰, M. Bhattacharya¹¹, M. Bishai², A. Blake¹⁶, T. Bolton¹⁵, J.Y. Book¹³, L. Camilleri⁹, D. Caratelli^3,11, I. Caro Terrazas⁸, F. Cavanna¹¹, G. Cerati¹¹, Y. Chen^1,27, D. Cianci⁹, J.M. Conrad²⁰, M. Convery²⁷, L. Cooper-Troendle³⁷, J.I. Crespo-Anadón⁵, M. Del Tutto¹¹, S.R. Dennis⁴, P. Detje⁴, A. Devitt¹⁶, R. Diurba²², R. Dorrill¹⁴, K. Duffy^11,24, S. Dytman²⁵, B. Eberly²⁹, A. Ereditato¹, J.J. Evans¹⁹, R. Fine¹⁷, G.A. Fiorentini Aguirre²⁸, R.S. Fitzpatrick²¹, B.T. Fleming³⁷, N. Foppiani¹³, D. Franco³⁷, A.P. Furmanski²², D. Garcia-Gamez¹², S. Gardiner¹¹, G. Ge⁹, S. Gollapinni^32,17, O. Goodwin¹⁹, E. Gramellini¹¹, P. Green¹⁹, H. Greenlee¹¹, W. Gu², R. Guenette^13,19, P. Guzowski¹⁹, L. Hagaman³⁷, O. Hen²⁰, C. Hilgenberg²², G.A. Horton-Smith¹⁵, A. Hourlier²⁰, R. Itay²⁷, C. James¹¹, X. Ji², L. Jiang³⁵, J.H. Jo³⁷, C. Joe¹¹, R.A. Johnson⁷, Y.-J. Jwa⁹, D. Kalra⁹, N. Kamp²⁰, N. Kaneshige³, G. Karagiorgi⁹, W. Ketchum¹¹, M. Kirby¹¹, T. Kobilarcik¹¹, I. Kreslo¹, I. Lepetic²⁶, J.-Y. Li¹⁰, K. Li³⁷, Y. Li², K. Lin¹⁷, B.R. Littlejohn¹⁴, W.C. Louis¹⁷, X. Luo³, K. Manivannan³⁰, C. Mariani³⁵, D. Marsden¹⁹, J. Marshall³⁶, D.A. Martinez Caicedo²⁸, K. Mason³⁴, A. Mastbaum²⁶, N. McConkey¹⁹, V. Meddage¹⁵, T. Mettler¹, K. Miller⁶, J. Mills³⁴, K. Mistry¹⁹, A. Mogan⁸, T. Mohayai¹¹, M. Mooney⁸, A.F. Moor⁴, C.D. Moore¹¹, L. Mora Lepin¹⁹, J. Mousseau²¹, S. Mulleriababu¹, D. Naples²⁵, A. Navrer-Agasson¹⁹, N. Nayak², M. Nebot-Guinot¹⁰, R.K. Neely¹⁵, D.A. Newmark¹⁷, J. Nowak¹⁶, M. Nunes³⁰, O. Palamara¹¹, V. Paolone²⁵, A. Papadopoulou²⁰, V. Papavassiliou²³, H.B. Parkinson¹⁰, S.F. Pate²³, N. Patel¹⁶, A. Paudel¹⁵, Z. Pavlovic¹¹, E. Piasetzky³¹, I.D. Ponce-Pinto³⁷, S. Prince¹³, X. Qian², J.L. Raaf¹¹, V. Radeka², A. Rafique¹⁵, M. Reggiani-Guzzo¹⁹, L. Ren²³, L.C.J. Rice²⁵, L. Rochester²⁷, J. Rodriguez Rondon²⁸, M. Rosenberg²⁵, M. Ross-Lonergan⁹, C. Rudolf von Rohr¹, G. Scanavini³⁷, D.W. Schmitz⁶, A. Schukraft¹¹, W. Seligman⁹, M.H. Shaevitz⁹, R. Sharankova¹¹, J. Shi⁴, J. Sinclair¹, A. Smith⁴, E.L. Snider¹¹, M. Soderberg³⁰, S. Söldner-Rembold¹⁹, P. Spentzouris¹¹, J. Spitz²¹, M. Stancari¹¹, J. St. John¹¹, T. Strauss¹¹, K. Sutton⁹, S. Sword-Fehlberg²³, A.M. Szelc¹⁰, W. Tang³², K. Terao²⁷, C. Thorpe¹⁶, D. Torbunov², D. Totani³, M. Toups¹¹, Y.-T. Tsai²⁷, M.A. Uchida⁴, T. Usher²⁷, B. Viren², M. Weber¹, H. Wei^2,18, A.J. White³⁷, Z. Williams³³, S. Wolbers¹¹, T. Wongjirad³⁴, M. Wospakrik¹¹, K. Wresilo⁴, N. Wright²⁰, W. Wu¹¹, E. Yandel³, T. Yang¹¹, G. Yarbrough³², L.E. Yates^11,20, H.W. Yu², G.P. Zeller¹¹, J. Zennamo¹¹, C. Zhang², M. Zuckerbrot¹¹ and The MicroBooNE collaboration

Published 16 November 2022 • © 2022 IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa Medialab
Journal of Instrumentation, Volume 17, November 2022 Citation P. Abratenko et al 2022 JINST 17 P11022 DOI 10.1088/1748-0221/17/11/P11022

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Author e-mails

microboone_info@fnal.gov

Author affiliations

¹ Universität Bern, Bern CH-3012, Switzerland

² Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY, 11973, U.S.A.

³ University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, U.S.A.

⁴ University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, U.K.

⁵ Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid E-28040, Spain

⁶ University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60637, U.S.A.

⁷ University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, 45221, U.S.A.

⁸ Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, U.S.A.

⁹ Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, U.S.A.

¹⁰ University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3FD, U.K.

¹¹ Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL 60510, U.S.A.

¹² Universidad de Granada, E-18071, Granada, Spain

¹³ Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.

¹⁴ Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago, IL 60616, U.S.A.

¹⁵ Kansas State University (KSU), Manhattan, KS, 66506, U.S.A.

¹⁶ Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YW, U.K.

¹⁷ Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM, 87545, U.S.A.

¹⁸ Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, U.S.A.

¹⁹ The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, U.K.

²⁰ Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, 02139, U.S.A.

²¹ University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, U.S.A.

²² University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Mn, 55455, U.S.A.

²³ New Mexico State University (NMSU), Las Cruces, NM, 88003, U.S.A.

²⁴ University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RH, U.K.

²⁵ University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15260, U.S.A.

²⁶ Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, U.S.A.

²⁷ SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA, 94025, U.S.A.

²⁸ South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT), Rapid City, SD, 57701, U.S.A.

²⁹ University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME, 04104, U.S.A.

³⁰ Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, 13244, U.S.A.

³¹ Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 69978, Israel

³² University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, U.S.A.

³³ University of Texas, Arlington, TX, 76019, U.S.A.

³⁴ Tufts University, Medford, MA, 02155, U.S.A.

³⁵ Center for Neutrino Physics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, U.S.A.

³⁶ University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, U.K.

³⁷ Wright Laboratory, Department of Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, U.S.A.

Dates

Received 22 March 2022
Accepted 25 October 2022
Published 16 November 2022

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Abstract

The 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.

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