Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2019
Volume 64, Number 3
Saturday–Tuesday, April 13–16, 2019; Denver, Colorado
Session Q10: WIMP Dark Matter III
10:45 AM–12:33 PM,
Monday, April 15, 2019
Sheraton
Room: Governor's Square 12
Sponsoring
Unit:
DPF
Chair: Ray Bunker, PNNL
Abstract: Q10.00003 : Lead-210 in SuperCDMS Copper*
11:09 AM–11:21 AM
Presenter:
Raymond A Bunker
(Pacific Northwest Natl Lab)
Author:
Raymond A Bunker
(Pacific Northwest Natl Lab)
High-purity copper is an important structural material for the Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (SuperCDMS) at SNOLAB; it will be used to fabricate low-background detector housings for each of the experiment's germanium and silicon crystals, as well as a large cryostat. Owing to the high chemical purity available with commercially produced copper, specific activities of radiocontaminants (e.g. U and Th isotopes) in the bulk copper material are generally modest. However, recent studies have demonstrated surprisingly high levels of Pb-210 in the bulk material, far out of secular equilibrium with the U-238 parent. Further, exposure to atmospheric radon can result in radon daughters plating out onto the surfaces of fabricated copper parts, ultimately leading to the implantation of Pb-210. I will describe experiments performed to test copper-surface treatments, together with low-level radiopurity assay measurements, to assess Pb-210 mitigation effectiveness and to directly verify Pb-210 levels for the copper that SuperCDMS SNOLAB will use in its detector payload.
*This work is supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of High Energy Physics; Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is operated by Battelle Memorial Institute for the DOE under Contract No. DE-AC05-76RL01830.
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