Analysis algorithm for digital data used in nuclear spectroscopy

Data obtained from digital acquisition systems used in nuclear spectroscopy experiments must be converted by a dedicated algorithm in or- der to extract the physical quantities of interest. I will report here the de- velopment of an algorithm capable to read digital data, discriminate between random and true signals and convert the results into a format readable by a special data analysis program package used to interpret nuclear spectra and to create coincident matrices. The algorithm can be used in any nuclear spectroscopy experimental setup provided that digital acquisition modules are involved. In particular it was used to treat data obtained from the IS441 experiment at ISOLDE where the beta decay of 80Zn was investigated as part of ultra-fast timing studies of neutron rich Zn nuclei. The results obtained for the half-lives of 80Zn and 80Ga were in very good agreement with previous measurements. This fact proved unquestionably that the conversion algorithm works. Another remarkable result was the improvement of 80Ga level scheme but this makes the object of a future publication and will not be detailed here.