New Experimentally Observable Gamma-ray Emissions from 241Am Nuclear Decay
With the high resolution of microcalorimeter detectors, previously unresolvable gamma-ray lines are now clearly resolvable. A careful measurement of Am-241 decay with a large array of gamma-ray microcalorimeters has revealed never before seen or predicted gamma lines at 207.72 +/- 0.02 keV and 208.2...
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
29.03.2021
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | With the high resolution of microcalorimeter detectors, previously
unresolvable gamma-ray lines are now clearly resolvable. A careful measurement
of Am-241 decay with a large array of gamma-ray microcalorimeters has revealed
never before seen or predicted gamma lines at 207.72 +/- 0.02 keV and 208.21
+/- 0.01 keV. These results were made possible by new microwave-multiplexing
readout to increase the array size and improved analysis algorithms to
eliminate spectral artifacts. We suggest nuclear levels from which these
gamma-rays might originate and calculate branching ratios for these transitions
from measurements of both mixed Pu-Am standards and a pure Am-241 source. These
results have implications for nuclear material safeguards and accounting,
particularly for microcalorimeter gamma spectrometers, which are now being
adopted in nuclear safeguards analytical laboratories. |
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Bibliography: | LA-UR-24-28099 |
DOI: | 10.48550/arxiv.2103.15893 |