https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-025-01490-z
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
The Felsenkeller shallow-underground laboratory for nuclear astrophysics
1
Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Bautzner Landstraße 400, 01328, Dresden, Germany
2
Institut für Kern- und Teilchenphysik, Technische Universität Dresden, Zellescher Weg 19, 01069, Dresden, Germany
3
Instituto de Física Corpuscular, CSIC and Universitat de Valencia, 46980, Paterna, Spain
4
Institut de Tècniques Energètiques (INTE), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Av. Diagonal 647, Barcelona, Spain
Received:
1
March
2024
Accepted:
13
January
2025
Published online:
29
January
2025
In the Felsenkeller shallow-underground site, protected from cosmic muons by a 45 m thick rock overburden, a research laboratory including a 5 MV Pelletron ion accelerator and a number of radioactivity-measurement setups is located. The laboratory and its installations are described in detail. The background radiation has been studied, finding suppression factors of 40 for cosmic-ray muons, 200 for ambient neutrons, and 100 for the background in germanium -ray detectors. Using an additional active muon veto, typically the background is just twice as high as in very deep underground laboratories. The properties of the accelerator including its external and internal ion sources and beam line are given. For the radioactivity counting setup, detection limits in the 10
Bq range have been obtained. Practical aspects for the usage of the laboratory by outside scientific users are discussed.
© The Author(s) 2025
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