using xml in cf

I am creating an xml document using <cfscript> tag as follows.

var Xmldoc1="";
Xmldoc1="<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>";
Xmldoc1=Xmldoc1 &"<root_node>";
............

I am unable to validate it as the resultant xml string 'xmldoc1' adds empty spaces in the beginning of the root node. Pls advise

 

Is this empty space - BOM character?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark