Rb-83/Kr-83(m) production and cross-section measurement with 3.4 MeV and 20 MeV proton beams

Kr-83m, with a short lifetime, is an ideal calibration source for liquid xenon or liquid argon detectors. The Kr-83m isomer can be generated through the decay of the Rb-83 isotope, which is usually produced by proton beams bombarding natural krypton atoms. In this paper, we report a successful production of Rb-83/Kr-83m with a proton beam energy of 3.4 MeV, and the first measurement of the production rate with such low-energy proton beams. Another production attempt is performed using the newly available 20 MeV proton beam in China, and the measured production rate is consistent with previous measurements. The produced Kr-83m source has been successfully injected into the PandaX-II liquid xenon detector, yielding enough statistics for detector calibration.