https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-017-4676-1
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
Radon depletion in xenon boil-off gas
Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg, 69117, Heidelberg, Germany
* e-mail: stefan.bruenner@mpi-hd.mpg.de
Received:
22
November
2016
Accepted:
3
February
2017
Published online:
4
March
2017
An important background in detectors using liquid xenon for rare event searches arises from the decays of radon and its daughters. We report for the first time a reduction of 
Rn in the gas phase above a liquid xenon reservoir. We show a reduction factor of 
for the Rn concentration in boil-off xenon gas compared to the radon enriched liquid phase. A semiconductor-based 
-detector and miniaturized proportional counters are used to detect the radon. As the radon depletion in the boil-off gas is understood as a single-stage distillation process, this result establishes the suitability of cryogenic distillation to separate radon from xenon down to the 
mol/mol level.
© The Author(s), 2017
