The characteristics of a low background germanium gamma ray spectrometer at China JinPing underground laboratory

A low background germanium gamma ray spectrometer, GeTHU, has been installed at China JinPing Underground Laboratory (CJPL). The integral background count rate of the spectrometer was 0.629 cpm between 40 and 2700 keV, the origins of which were studied by Monte Carlo simulation. Detection limits and efficiencies were calculated for selected gamma peaks. Some samples of rare event experiments were measured and 137Cs contamination was found in boric acid. GeTHU will be mainly used to measure environmental samples and screen materials in dark matter and double beta decay experiments.