Uncertainty of Plutonium Isotopic Measurements with Microcalorimeter and High-Purity Germanium Detectors

Autor:	Ryan Winkler, William B. Doriese, Andrew S. Hoover, Daniel Schmidt, Carl D. Reintsema, Joseph W. Fowler, Michael W. Rabin, Robert D. Horansky, James Hayes-Wehle, Kathryn Schaffer, Leila R. Vale, Joel N. Ullom, Douglas A. Bennett
Rok vydání:	2014
Předmět:	Physics Nuclear and High Energy Physics Detector chemistry.chemical_element Nuclear data Germanium Plutonium Semiconductor detector Nuclear physics Nuclear Energy and Engineering chemistry Approximation error Electrical and Electronic Engineering Spectroscopy Order of magnitude
Zdroj:	IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science. 61:2365-2372
ISSN:	1558-1578 0018-9499
DOI:	10.1109/tns.2014.2332275
Popis:	The nondestructive assay (NDA) of plutonium-bearing materials using gamma-ray spectroscopy supports global nuclear nonproliferation and safeguards efforts. High-purity germanium (HPGe) detectors have been used for this application for decades, but the uncertainty limit remains around 1% relative error for measured isotope ratios, an order of magnitude larger than destructive assay. To lower NDA uncertainty limits, we are pursuing new measurement technology using superconducting microcalorimeter detectors, and assessing the sources of current uncertainty limits. We compare results from analysis of plutonium isotopic standards using HPGe and microcalorimeter detectors, and find lower random error for the microcalorimeter data. Uncertainties in the reference values of constants of nature contribute to the total measurement error. For one particular set of constants, the gamma-ray energies, we find that microcalorimeter analysis is much less sensitive (more than a factor of ten) to the uncertainty in nuclear data than HPGe.
Databáze:	OpenAIRE
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