Accumulation of radon in the underground detector cups

Theoretical calculations based on the radon migration mechanism (i. e. diffusion, convection and atmospheric pumping etc) show that the balance of radon concentration in underground detector cups buried and in surrounding soil gas requires about 0.7-10 hours. However, the equilibrium of radon with its daughter products in the cups needs about 4 hours. Therefore, it is considered that 4.5-12 hours are needed for these two processes. It takes 3-4 days for Tn to reach radioactive equilibrium with its short-lived daughter products. When thorium concentration is higher than background exposure time of the detector cups should be over 3-4 days. Using buried detector cups, field experiments give correlative results compared with those of theoretical calculations. The study is oriented both for optimizing the burial time of the detector cup and interpretation of radon anomalies detected