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New measurements of gamma-ray energies and their absolute intensities from the decay of 231Pa

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Abstract

Accurate nuclear data for the decay of 231Pa is highly important for non-destructive analysis in the areas of radiochronometry and nuclear forensics. However, the evaluated nuclear data for this isotope is lacking; many previous measurements have large uncertainties and only two measurements are used to determine the absolute intensities. This work presents modern measurements of the major gamma-ray emissions from the decay of 231Pa to 227Ac including the energies and absolute intensities. For many of these measurements, the error envelopes have been significantly decreased compared to previous measurements, while remaining in good agreement. The absolute intensity of the 283 keV reference line was measured as 0.0163(2).

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Acknowledgements

This study was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration through the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium under Award No. DE-NA0003180. The authors would like to thank Keenan Thomas and the Nuclear Counting Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for preforming gamma-ray spectrometry as well as Ken Moody for assisting with the error analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nuclear Engineering Department, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Kelly N. Kmak & Jasmina Vujic

  2. Nuclear and Chemical Sciences Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA

    Dawn A. Shaughnessy

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  1. Kelly N. Kmak
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  2. Dawn A. Shaughnessy
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  3. Jasmina Vujic
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Correspondence to Kelly N. Kmak.

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Kmak, K.N., Shaughnessy, D.A. & Vujic, J. New measurements of gamma-ray energies and their absolute intensities from the decay of 231Pa. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 325, 223–228 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-020-07209-2

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