Eur. Phys. J. C (2018) 78: 132
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-018-5565-y

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Intrinsic backgrounds from Rn and Kr in the XENON100 experiment

¹ Physics Department, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, USA
² Nikhef and the University of Amsterdam, Science Park, 1098XG, Amsterdam, Netherlands
³ INFN-Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso and Gran Sasso Science Institute, 67100, L’Aquila, Italy
⁴ Department of Physics and Astrophysics, University of Bologna and INFN-Bologna, 40126, Bologna, Italy
⁵ Institut für Physik & Exzellenzcluster PRISMA, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 55099, Mainz, Germany
⁶ LIBPhys, Department of Physics, University of Coimbra, 3004-516, Coimbra, Portugal
⁷ New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
⁸ Physik-Institut, University of Zurich, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland
⁹ Oskar Klein Centre, Department of Physics, Stockholm University, AlbaNova, Stockholm, SE-10691, Sweden
¹⁰ Department of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 12180, USA
¹¹ Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, 69117, Heidelberg, Germany
¹² Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Weizmann Institute of Science, 7610001, Rehovot, Israel
¹³ Physikalisches Institut, Universität Freiburg, 79104, Freiburg, Germany
¹⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA
¹⁵ SUBATECH, IMT Atlantique, CNRS/IN2P3, Université de Nantes, 44307, Nantes, France
¹⁶ Department of Physics, University of California, San Diego, CA, 92093, USA
¹⁷ Institut für Kernphysik, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, 48149, Münster, Germany
¹⁸ INFN-Torino and Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino, 10125, Torino, Italy
¹⁹ Department of Physics, Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA
²⁰ Physics & Astronomy Department, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
²¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, TX, 77005, USA
²² LPNHE, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Université Paris Diderot, CNRS/IN2P3, Paris, 75252, France

^* e-mail: xenon@lngs.infn.it

Received: 14 August 2017
Accepted: 16 January 2018
Published online: 16 February 2018

Abstract

In this paper, we describe the XENON100 data analyses used to assess the target-intrinsic background sources radon ( ), thoron ( ) and krypton ( ). We detail the event selections of high-energy alpha particles and decay-specific delayed coincidences. We derive distributions of the individual radionuclides inside the detector and quantify their abundances during the main three science runs of the experiment over a period of , from January 2010 to January 2014. We compare our results to external measurements of radon emanation and krypton concentrations where we find good agreement. We report an observed reduction in concentrations of radon daughters that we attribute to the plating-out of charged ions on the negatively biased cathode.