3 research outputs found
Exploring atmospheric radon with airborne gamma-ray spectroscopy
Rn is a noble radioactive gas produced along the U decay
chain, which is present in the majority of soils and rocks. As Rn is
the most relevant source of natural background radiation, understanding its
distribution in the environment is of great concern for investigating the
health impacts of low-level radioactivity and for supporting regulation of
human exposure to ionizing radiation in modern society. At the same time,
Rn is a widespread atmospheric tracer whose spatial distribution is
generally used as a proxy for climate and pollution studies. Airborne gamma-ray
spectroscopy (AGRS) always treated Rn as a source of background since
it affects the indirect estimate of equivalent U concentration. In this
work the AGRS method is used for the first time for quantifying the presence of
Rn in the atmosphere and assessing its vertical profile. High
statistics radiometric data acquired during an offshore survey are fitted as a
superposition of a constant component due to the experimental setup background
radioactivity plus a height dependent contribution due to cosmic radiation and
atmospheric Rn. The refined statistical analysis provides not only a
conclusive evidence of AGRS Rn detection but also a (0.96 0.07)
Bq/m Rn concentration and a (1318 22) m atmospheric layer
depth fully compatible with literature data.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures, 2 table
Airborne Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy for Modeling Cosmic Radiation and Effective Dose in the Lower Atmosphere
In this paper, we present the results of an 5-h airborne gamma-ray survey carried out over the Tyrrhenian Sea in which the height range (77-3066) m has been investigated. Gamma-ray spectroscopy measurements have been performed using the AGRS_16L detector, a module of four 4L NaI(Tl) crystals. The experimental setup was mounted on the Radgyro, a prototype aircraft designed for multisensorial acquisitions in the field of proximal remote sensing. By acquiring high-statistics spectra over the sea (i.e., in the absence of signals having geological origin) and by spanning a wide spectrum of altitudes, it has been possible to split the measured count rate into a constant aircraft component and a cosmic component exponentially increasing with increasing height. The monitoring of the count rate having pure cosmic origin in the >3-MeV energy region allowed to infer the background count rates in the ⁴⁰K, ²¹⁴$Bi, and ²⁰⁸Tl photopeaks, which need to be subtracted in processing airborne gamma-ray data in order to estimate the potassium, uranium, and thorium abundances in the ground. Moreover, a calibration procedure has been carried out by implementing the CARI-6P and Excel-based program for calculating atmospheric cosmic ray spectrum dosimetry tools, according to which the annual cosmic effective dose to human population has been linearly related to the measured cosmic count rates