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Effect of sample density in prompt γ-ray analysis

A high-accuracy analytical method is broadly required to obtain reliable research results. Thus, prompt γ-ray analysis (PGA), one of the most accurate non-destructive analytical methods, has been employed in various fields. However, the measurement accuracy of PGA is also known to degrade in hydroge...

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Autores principales: Maeda, Makoto, Segawa, Mariko, Toh, Yosuke, Endo, Shunsuke, Nakamura, Shoji, Kimura, Atsushi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9160239/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35650282
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-08594-2
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author Maeda, Makoto
Segawa, Mariko
Toh, Yosuke
Endo, Shunsuke
Nakamura, Shoji
Kimura, Atsushi
author_facet Maeda, Makoto
Segawa, Mariko
Toh, Yosuke
Endo, Shunsuke
Nakamura, Shoji
Kimura, Atsushi
author_sort Maeda, Makoto
collection PubMed
description A high-accuracy analytical method is broadly required to obtain reliable research results. Thus, prompt γ-ray analysis (PGA), one of the most accurate non-destructive analytical methods, has been employed in various fields. However, the measurement accuracy of PGA is also known to degrade in hydrogenous samples. The degradation is caused by variation in the measurement sensitivity (counts per milligram) following the change in neutron energy due to scattering with hydrogen nucleus. Number of scatterings is well known to depend on the hydrogen content in a sample. However, considering multiple scatterings, hydrogen density, which has not been taken into account as yet, may also lead to the accuracy degradation. Here, we show the effect of the hydrogen density in PGA by evaluating the measurement sensitivity of samples with the same hydrogen content and different densities. We find that the measurement sensitivity varies by more than 30% depending on the hydrogen density even at the same hydrogen content. The variation is a particularly serious problem for PGA requiring a few percent accuracy in most cases. Additionally, although the variation is apparently observed in hydrogenous samples, the similar phenomenon can occur in other nuclides with a large scattering cross section; it may affect nuclear cross-section measurements using neutrons in such fields as astrophysics and nuclear energy.
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spelling pubmed-91602392022-06-03 Effect of sample density in prompt γ-ray analysis Maeda, Makoto Segawa, Mariko Toh, Yosuke Endo, Shunsuke Nakamura, Shoji Kimura, Atsushi Sci Rep Article A high-accuracy analytical method is broadly required to obtain reliable research results. Thus, prompt γ-ray analysis (PGA), one of the most accurate non-destructive analytical methods, has been employed in various fields. However, the measurement accuracy of PGA is also known to degrade in hydrogenous samples. The degradation is caused by variation in the measurement sensitivity (counts per milligram) following the change in neutron energy due to scattering with hydrogen nucleus. Number of scatterings is well known to depend on the hydrogen content in a sample. However, considering multiple scatterings, hydrogen density, which has not been taken into account as yet, may also lead to the accuracy degradation. Here, we show the effect of the hydrogen density in PGA by evaluating the measurement sensitivity of samples with the same hydrogen content and different densities. We find that the measurement sensitivity varies by more than 30% depending on the hydrogen density even at the same hydrogen content. The variation is a particularly serious problem for PGA requiring a few percent accuracy in most cases. Additionally, although the variation is apparently observed in hydrogenous samples, the similar phenomenon can occur in other nuclides with a large scattering cross section; it may affect nuclear cross-section measurements using neutrons in such fields as astrophysics and nuclear energy. Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-06-01 /pmc/articles/PMC9160239/ /pubmed/35650282 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-08594-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Maeda, Makoto
Segawa, Mariko
Toh, Yosuke
Endo, Shunsuke
Nakamura, Shoji
Kimura, Atsushi
Effect of sample density in prompt γ-ray analysis
title Effect of sample density in prompt γ-ray analysis
title_full Effect of sample density in prompt γ-ray analysis
title_fullStr Effect of sample density in prompt γ-ray analysis
title_full_unstemmed Effect of sample density in prompt γ-ray analysis
title_short Effect of sample density in prompt γ-ray analysis
title_sort effect of sample density in prompt γ-ray analysis
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9160239/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35650282
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-08594-2
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