A low background ionisation chamber for alpha-spectroscopy

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Contributors

Abstract

The goal of designing a low background ionisation chamber is to measure long lived α-decay half-lives which might interfere with rare event searches. Such decays play a part in many fields in nuclear physics and are difficult to measure. A lot of Geiger-Nutall studies also depend on them. Among others the research is specifically aimed at the precision measurements of α emitters mainly within the Lanthanide region. The excellent energy resolution would also allow to search for excited states in α-decays. To achieve this goal a gridded ionisation chamber was constructed using the Frisch-Grid design. A background rate of only 10.9(6) counts per day has been achieved in the energy region of 1 MeV to 9 MeV and improvements are possible. This low background rate and size of the chamber allows precision measurements of long living alpha decays with half-lives in the region of 1 × 1015 years.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationND 2016
EditorsPeter Siegler, Wim Mondelaers, Arjan Plompen, Franz-Josef Hambsch, Peter Schillebeeckx, Stefan Kopecky, Jan Heyse, Stephan Oberstedt
PublisherEDP Sciences
ISBN (electronic)9782759890200
Publication statusPublished - 13 Sept 2017
Peer-reviewedYes

Publication series

SeriesEPJ Web of Conferences
Volume146
ISSN2101-6275

Conference

Title2016 International Conference on Nuclear Data for Science and Technology, ND 2016
Duration11 - 16 September 2016
CityBruges
CountryBelgium

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas