Analysis of environmental radioxenon detections in the UK

摘要

Radioxenon activity concentrations are monitored globally using the International Monitoring System (IMS) of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation, improving the monitoring community's ability to detect radionuclide signatures from an underground nuclear test (UNT). An IMS-like noble gas system is in operation at AWE (Aldermaston, UK) and can collect and measure radioxenon isotopes in environmental air samples. When operated in this mode, data produced is analysed at the UK National Data Centre (NDC) and significant detection events are flagged for further investigation. This work discusses a number of significant detection events analysed using the operational system deployed at the UK NDC, which includes atmospheric transport simulations and a real-time stack-monitoring data feed from the nearest medical isotope production facility in Belgium. A comparison of the expected radionuclide contributions with measured detections is presented, including a comparison of the isotopic ratios for the radioxenon isotopes of interest (133Xe, 131mXe, 133mXe, 135Xe).