Simulation of the response of an ionization chamber to $^{214}$Bi emission. Application to the measurement of $^{222}$Rn.

Sylvie Pierre (1) , Cheick Thiam (1) , Philippe Cassette (1) , Xavier Mougeot (1) , Abhilasha Singh (1)

1 LNHB - Laboratoire National Henri Becquerel

PENELOPE simulations of a Vinten ionization chamber (IC) were performed to investigate the influence of the thickness of glass-ampoules used in $^{222}$Rn standardization. The simulation reveals a non-negligible variation of the energy deposited in the chamber gas region (which may induce a proportional variation of the measured current) when considering the $\beta$ transition emissions of the daughters of $^{222}$Rn. This reinforces the idea of using a specialist container (made of metal to preserve the integrity of the container) that would circulate between the metrology laboratories in the context of international comparison exercises using the BIPM international reference system (SIR).

Keywords: PENELOPE; Radionuclide metrology; Radon; metrology; Monte Carlo simulation; Radon 2; Ionization chamber

Domains: Physics [physics]; Nuclear Theory [nucl-th]; Computer Science [cs]; Modeling and Simulation; Statistics [stat]; Methodology [stat.ME]; Statistics [stat]; Applications [stat.AP]

Sylvie Pierre, Cheick Thiam, Philippe Cassette, Xavier Mougeot, Abhilasha Singh. Simulation of the response of an ionization chamber to $^{214}$Bi emission. Application to the measurement of $^{222}$Rn.. Applied Radiation and Isotopes, 2019, 154, pp.108886. ⟨10.1016/j.apradiso.2019.108886⟩. ⟨cea-02475866⟩