Accurate Determination of the Absolute 3He/4He Ratio of a Synthesized Helium Standard Gas (Helium Standard of Japan, HESJ): Toward Revision of the Atmospheric 3He/4He Ratio

Abstract

Abstract The helium standard of Japan, referred to as HESJ, is an interlaboratory standard for the 3He/4He ratio. While the ratio of 3He and 4He of the HESJ was previously determined by a relative comparison to atmospheric helium, the absolute value of the 3He/4He ratio of the HESJ has not been directly determined yet. Therefore, it relies on the early measurements of that of atmospheric helium. The accuracy of the absolute 3He/4He ratios of the atmosphere and other working standards including HESJ is crucial in some applications of helium isotopes, such as tritium‐3He dating, surface‐exposure age determination based on cosmogenic 3He, and the accurate measurement of the neutron lifetime. In this work, new control samples of helium gases with 3He/4He ratios of 14, 28, and 42 ppm were fabricated with accuracy of 0.25–0.38% using a gas‐handling system for a neutron lifetime experiment at Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex. The relative 3He/4He ratios of these samples and the HESJ were measured using a magnetic‐sector type, single‐focusing, noble gas mass spectrometer with a double collector system. As a result, the absolute 3He/4He ratio of the HESJ was determined as 27.36 ± 0.11 ppm. The atmospheric 3He/4He ratio was determined as 1.340 ± 0.006 ppm, based on this work.

Keywords

• helium isotopes
• noble gas mass spectrometry
• helium standard of Japan
• atmospheric 3He/4He ratio
• neutron lifetime measurement