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Physics

Nuclear physics

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Displaying 101 - 125 of 136

HOW OLD IS IT? - 241PU/AMNUCLEAR FORENSIC CHRONOLOGY REFERENCE MATERIALS

October 27, 2015
Author(s)
Ryan P. Fitzgerald, Kenneth G. Inn
One material attribute for nuclear forensics is material age. 241Pu is almost always present in uranium- and plutonium-based nuclear weapons, which pose the greatest threat to our security. The in-growth of 241Am due to the decay of 241Pu provides an

Development of an Ultra-Pure, Carrier-Free 209Po Solution Standard

July 23, 2015
Author(s)
Ronald Colle, Ryan P. Fitzgerald, Lizbeth Laureano-Perez
Ultra-pure, carrier-free 209Po solution standards have been prepared and standardized for their massic alpha-particle emission rate. The standards, which will be disseminated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as Standard

On the 209Po Half-Life Error and Its Confirmation: A Critique

June 11, 2015
Author(s)
Ronald Colle, Arthur M. Colle
Collé, et al [(2007) Appl. Radiat Isot. 65, 728; (2014) J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 41, 105103], over the course of nearly a decade and with decay data from a period of 20.7 years, initially uncovered and then substantiated a 25 % error in the 209Po half

Uncertainties in 4-pi-beta-gamma coincidence counting

May 22, 2015
Author(s)
Ryan P. Fitzgerald, Claude Bailat, Christophe Bobin, John Keightley
The 4-pi-beta-gamma coincidence counting method and its close relatives are widely used for the primary standardization of radioactivity. Both the general formalism and specific implementation of these methods have been well-documented. In particular, the

Uncertainty evaluation in activity measurements using ionization chambers

May 22, 2015
Author(s)
Marie Noelle Amiot, V Chiste, Ryan P. Fitzgerald, F Juget, Carine Michotte, Andrew Pearce, G Ratel
Pressurized re-entrant (or 4π) pressurized ionization chambers (ICs) connected to current- measuring electronics are used for activity measurements of photon emitting radionuclides and some beta emitters in the field of metrology and nuclear medicine. As a

Uncertainty of nuclear counting

May 22, 2015
Author(s)
Stefaan Pomme, John Keightley, Ryan P. Fitzgerald
Nuclear counting is affected by pulse pileup and system dead time which induce rate-related count loss and alter the statistical properties of the counting process. Fundamental equations are presented to predict deviations from Poisson statistics due to

Two determinations of the 223Ra half-life

May 1, 2015
Author(s)
Denis E. Bergeron, Ryan P. Fitzgerald
Ra-223 is an alpha-emitter that is being used as a bone-seeking radiotherapeutic agent. The relatively large uncertainty on its half-life (0.26 %, Bé et al., 2011) is an impediment to precision activity assays. We have performed two series of measurements

Secondary standards for 223Ra revised

March 5, 2015
Author(s)
Denis E. Bergeron, Jeffrey T. Cessna, Brian E. Zimmerman
Dose calibrator dial settings reported by NIST in 2010 (ARI v. 68, p. 1367) are now known to give erroneously low (by 10 %) activity readings. The original determinations were based on a chain of calibrations; a broken link in this chain was recently

A review of NIST primary activity standards for 18F: 1982 to 2013

August 27, 2014
Author(s)
Denis E. Bergeron, Jeffrey T. Cessna, Bert M. Coursey, Ryan P. Fitzgerald, Brian E. Zimmerman
The new NIST activity standardization for 18F differs from results obtained between 1998 and 2008 by 4 %. The new results are considered to be very reliable; they are based on a battery of robust primary measurement techniques and bring the NIST standard

The Half-Life of 209Po : Revisited

August 13, 2014
Author(s)
Ronald Colle, Ryan P. Fitzgerald, Lizbeth Laureano-Perez
A substantial 25 % error in the then known and accepted (102  5) year half-life of 209Po was reported on in 2007. This error was detected from decay data from two separate primary standardizations of a 209Po solution standard, which were performed

Measuring the Neutron Lifetime Using Magnetically Trapped Neutrons

May 1, 2014
Author(s)
Hans P. Mumm, Alan Keith Thompson, Paul R. Huffman, Christopher O'Shaughnessy, Kevin J. Coakley, Robert Golub, John M. Doyle, Steve K. Lamoreaux, P.-N. Seo, C E. Mattoni, S N. Dzhosyuk, L Yang, Grace L. Yang, Karl W. Schelhammer, Christopher M. Swank
The neutron beta-decay lifetime plays an important role, both in understanding weak interactions within the framework of the Standard Model, and in theoretical predictions of the primordial abundance of 4He in Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. In previous work, we

Results of an international comparison for the activity measurement of 177Lu

March 6, 2012
Author(s)
Brian E. Zimmerman, Denis E. Bergeron, Jeffrey T. Cessna
An international Key Comparison of 177Lu has recently been carried out. Twelve laboratories performed assays for radioactivity content on aliquots of a common master solution of 177Lu, leading to eleven results submitted for entry into the Key Comparison

NIST Ionization Chamber "A" Sample-Height Corrections

February 2, 2012
Author(s)
Ryan P. Fitzgerald
For over 30 years scientists in the NIST radioactivity group have been using their ionization chamber “A” to make measurements of radioactivity and radioactive half-lives. We now have evidence that some of those reported measurements were incorrect due to

Polarized neutron beam properties for measuring parity-violating spin rotation in liquid He4

December 14, 2010
Author(s)
A M. Micherdzinska, C. D. Bass, T. D. Bass, K. F. Gan, D Lou, D M. Markoff, Hans Pieter Mumm, Jeffrey S. Nico, A. K. Opper, E I. Sharapov, M Snow, H E. Swanson, V Zhumabekova
Measurements of parity-violating neutron spin rotation can provide insight into the poorly nderstood nucleon-nucleon weak interaction. Because the expected rotation angle per unit length is small (10−7 rad/m), several properties of the polarized cold

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Gyroscopes

November 2, 2010
Author(s)
Elizabeth A. Donley
Nuclear magnetic resonance gyroscopes(NMRGs)detect rotation as shift in the Larmor precession frequency of nuclear spins. A review of the open literature on NMRGs is presented, which includes an introduction to the spectroscopic techniques that enable
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