Determination of 137Cs Radioactive Contamination over Soil Depth Using a Xenon Spectrometer

The applicability of a high-pressure xenon based spectrometer for determining the parameters of radioactive contamination of soil or building structures by 137Cs resulting from a radiation accident was studied. For soil contaminated by 137Cs with an exponential depth distribution, the Monte Carlo method was used to calculate the characteristics of the radiation field at the detection height and the instrumental gamma spectra. It is shown that there is promise in using such a detector to determine the parameters of the contamination penetration into the interior volume of the material. It is shown that the sensitivity of the measurement of activity along depth depends on the width of the working zone in the valley and the influence of the thickness of the body of the detector is determined.