Speaker
Description
Between late November and early December 2022, large amounts of radioxenon were detected by multiple IMS stations and by the Swedish Radioxenon array, which at the time consisted of four SAUNA Q$_B$ detectors. In total, there were over 100 detections of Xe-133, with Xe-133m concurrently found in approximately a dozen samples. The continuous and complex nature of these detections, along with the consistent Xe-133m to Xe-133 ratio, suggests a sustained release of radioxenon presumably from a single source over several days or weeks. The Xe-133m to Xe-133 ratio was used to analyze the characteristics of the source. To identify potential source regions and estimate the source term, both backward and forward atmospheric transport models (ATM) were calculated. A grid approach was used for the forward models, matching atmospheric transport simulations at various locations to observed data. We explored the impact of restricting observational data used in the analysis to assess and compare the sparse but globally distributed IMS network to the compact but local Swedish array. These results offer valuable insight into how a detector network configuration can enhance localization efforts of radioxenon releases.
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