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Keywords:

high-precision half-life measurements, gamma-ray counting, detector pulse pile-up, RADIOACTIVE BEAM, LIVES, O-14, Science & Technology, Technology, Physical Sciences, Instruments & Instrumentation, Nuclear Science & Technology, Physics, Nuclear, Physics, Particles & Fields, Physics, 0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences, 0202 Atomic, Molecular, Nuclear, Particle and Plasma Physics, 0299 Other Physical Sciences, Nuclear & Particles Physics, 5106 Nuclear and plasma physics

Abstract:

A general technique that corrects gamma-ray gated beta decay-curve data for detector pulse pile-up is presented. The method includes corrections for non-zero time-resolution and energy-threshold effects in addition to a special treatment of saturating events due to cosmic rays. This technique is verified through a Monte Carlo simulation and experimental data using radioactive beams of Na-26 implanted at the center of the 8 pi gamma-ray spectrometer at the ISAC facility at TRIUMF in Vancouver, Canada. The P-decay half-life of Na-26 obtained from counting 1809-keV gamma-ray photopeaks emitted by the daughter Mg-26 was determined to be T-1/2 = 1.07167 +/- 0.00055 s following a 27 sigma correction for detector pulse pile-up. This result is in excellent agreement with the result of a previous measurement that employed direct beta counting and demonstrates the feasibility of high-precision beta-decay half-life measurements through the use of high-purity germanium gamma-ray detectors. The technique presented here, while motivated by superallowed-Fermi P decay studies, is general and can be used for all half-life determinations (e.g. alpha-, beta-, X-ray, fission) in which a gamma-ray photopeak is used to select the decays of a particular isotope. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.