Modeling of Radioxenon Production and Release Pathways

Models have been developed to calculate the diffusion of radioxenon through porous environmental media such as sand and soil. Initial experiments have also been conducted to determine the feasibility of radioxenon transport through soil and sand columns. The initial studies investigated method detection limits for xenon detection. These results show that stable xenon may be detected through prompt gamma activation analysis (PGAA) with detection limits in the 10-ppm range. New experiments are being designed to measure the diffusion of xenon in a nondestructive temporal manner. The initial goal is to measure an overall diffusion coefficient for each porous medium. The secondary goal is to measure the isotopic fractionation resulting from the process. 2010 Monitoring Research Review: Ground-Based Nuclear Explosion Monitoring Technologies