Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Santorelli, R.
• Olmedo, A. I. Barrado
• Vilda, E. Conde
• Diaz, M. Fernandez
• Pesudo, V.
• Romero, L.
• Schnee, Richard W.
• Heise, Jaret

Titel

Measurement of the argon purity by ICP-MS and results of the analysis of the gas used for the MicroBooNE experiment

Ist Teil von

• AIP Conference Proceedings, 2023, Vol.2908 (1)

Ort / Verlag

Melville: American Institute of Physics

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Link zum Volltext

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Measuring the argon purity is critical for all Ar-based rare event research experiments. Mass spectrometry is typically used to assess the uranium and thorium contamination in samples of the materials used to build low-background detectors; however, this technique has the potential to provide other valuable information that is currently not exploited. We have shown that, by ICP-MS, it is possible to identify and quantify common chemical contaminants in argon. Preliminary tests were done with the gas extracted from the experiments MicroBooNE at FNAL and ArDM at LSC. In the former case, we evidenced relevant nitrogen contamination well above the one measured in the commercial argon gas. In ArDM, we identified and quantified the presence of mercury in the gas used for its science run. In both cases, the presence of krypton (~ppb) and xenon (~10s ppb) in argon gas has been established.