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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Phys.
Sec. Nuclear Physics​
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphy.2024.1435615
This article is part of the Research Topic Beta Decay: Current Theoretical and Experimental Challenges View all 4 articles

Unfolding experimental distortions in beta spectrometry

Provisionally accepted
Gaël Craveiro Gaël Craveiro 1,2Sylvain Leblond Sylvain Leblond 1,2*Xavier Mougeot Xavier Mougeot 1,2Matthieu Vivier Matthieu Vivier 1,3
  • 1 Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives (CEA), Paris, France
  • 2 Laboratoire National Henri Becquerel, Gif-sur-Yvette, Île-de-France, France
  • 3 Institut de recherche sur les lois fondamentales de l'Univers (IRFU), Gif-sur-Yvette, Île-de-France, France

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The distortions of measured beta spectra are addressed by means of unfolding algorithms.Two different approaches, the Maximum-Likelihood Expectation-Maximization and the Tikhonov regularization, are tested on various simulated spectra, for which the initial spectrum to retrieve is known, and on a 99 Tc spectrum measured with our dedicated setup. Statistical uncertainties of distorted measured spectra are propagated by determining the covariance matrices. Both algorithms provide satisfactory results but Tikhonov performs overall better for most of the studied radionuclides. Highlight is made on the necessity to employ at least two independent methods to ensure the accuracy of the unfolded spectra and to estimate the internal bias of each algorithm.

    Keywords: Beta spectra, experimental distortions, unfolding, MLEM, Tikhonov, Uncertainties

    Received: 20 May 2024; Accepted: 22 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Craveiro, Leblond, Mougeot and Vivier. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Sylvain Leblond, Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives (CEA), Paris, France

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