Twenty Years of VERA

Autor(en)

Robin Golser, Walter Kutschera

Abstrakt

With Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) ultra-low isotopic abundances (10^–12 to 10^–16) of long-lived radionuclides, both natural and anthropogenic, are being measured by including an accelerator. Direct atom counting results in an enormous gain in detection sensitivity for long-lived radionuclides as compared to their rare decay. For the most-used radionuclide, ¹⁴C (half-life = 5,700 yr), this means that instead of grams of carbon required for beta counting one can use milligrams or even micrograms to determine the ¹⁴C content. In addition, an AMS measurement takes less than an hour rather than the several days required for beta counting. The gain becomes even larger for longer half-lives in the million-year range and beyond.

Organisation(en)

Isotopenphysik

Journal

Nuclear Physics News

Band

27

Seiten

29-34

Anzahl der Seiten

6

ISSN

1061-9127

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1080/10619127.2017.1351183

Publikationsdatum

07-2017

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

103014 Kernphysik

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Nuclear and High Energy Physics

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/04e2d026-78ae-4554-92eb-256e0c4f520c