Dead time correction and regulation method and apparatus for nuclear spectroscopy.

摘要

A nuclear spectroscopy method and apparatus for the analysis of a signal comprising pulses representative of random nuclear events, and for the determination of the dead time, including counting and recording, versus time, the accumulated counts of the pile-up events (PU), i.e. events identified as being characteristic of two or more overlapping events, and the counts of non pile-up events (NPU), for each of successive time intervals of a measurement cycle. Particularly the method includes: forming a preliminary reference plot of the PU count rates versus the NPU count rates; forming an actual plot corresponding to the signal under analysis, of PU count rates versus NPU count rates; and deducing the dead time from comparison between actual and reference plots. In an alternative embodiment, the method allows one to maintain constant the dead time, during the signal analysis, by: establishing a preliminary relationship between dead time and different plots of PU count rates versus NPU count rates; establishing a preliminary relationship between the plots and a functioning parameter; establishing a reference plot corresponding to an imposed dead time; establishing an actual plot; comparing the actual and reference plots; and modifying the functioning parameter so as to bring the respective actual and reference plots in compliance.