The Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment investigating tritium beta-decay close to the endpoint with unprecedented precision has stringent requirements on the background level of less than 10^(-2) counts per second. Electron emission during the alpha-decay of Rn-219 and Rn-220 atoms in the electrostatic spectrometers of KATRIN is a serious source of background exceeding this limit. In this paper we compare extensive simulations of Rn-induced background to specific measurements with the KATRIN pre-spectrometer to fully characterize the observed Rn-background rates and signatures and determine generic Rn emanation rates from the pre-spectrometer bulk material and its vacuum components.
@article{arxiv.1304.1379,
title = {Validation of a model for Radon-induced background processes in electrostatic spectrometers},
author = {N. Wandkowsky and G. Drexlin and F. M. Fränkle and F. Glück and S. Groh and S. Mertens},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1304.1379},
year = {2015}
}