Analysis of gamma-ray spectra with spectral unmixing — Part I: Determination of the characteristic limits (decision threshold and statistical uncertainty) for measurements of environmental aerosol filters

Jiaxin Xu (1) , Jérôme Bobin (2) , Anne de Vismes Ott (1) , Christophe Bobin (3) , Paul Malfrait (1)

1 IRSN/PSE-ENV/SAME/LMRE - Laboratoire de métrologie de la radioactivité dans l'environnement
2 DEDIP - Département d'Electronique, des Détecteurs et d'Informatique pour la Physique (ex SEDI)
3 LNHB (CEA, LIST) - Laboratoire National Henri Becquerel (CEA, LIST)

Poisson-statistics based spectral unmixing has previously been shown to be an efficient analysis tool for the activity estimation of radionuclides from gammaray spectroscopy measurements. In this paper, we present the quantification of characteristic limits (decision threshold, detection limit and limits of the coverage interval) for the metrological use of such spectral unmixing algorithms. The proposed approaches are evaluated and validated with simulated spectra of HPGe and NaI measurements by comparing the results to characteristic values calculated from Monte Carlo simulations

Mots clés: Decision threshold; Full spectrum analysis; Gamma spectrometry; Spectral unmixing; Uncertainty; ionizing radiation; radioactivity; signal processing; spectrum analysis; gamma-rays; spectrometry; spectral unmixing; decision threshold; metrology; radionuclide; Monte-Carlo; simulation; particle transport; gamma-ray spectrometry characteristic limits full spectrum analysis spectral unmixing; gamma-ray spectrometry; characteristic limits; full spectrum analysis

Domaines: Physique Nucléaire Expérimentale [nucl-ex]; Traitement du signal et de l'image [eess.SP]; Instrumentations et Détecteurs [physics.ins-det]

Jiaxin Xu, Jérôme Bobin, Anne de Vismes Ott, Christophe Bobin, Paul Malfrait. Analysis of gamma-ray spectra with spectral unmixing — Part I: Determination of the characteristic limits (decision threshold and statistical uncertainty) for measurements of environmental aerosol filters. Applied Radiation and Isotopes, 2022, 182, pp.110109. ⟨10.1016/j.apradiso.2022.110109⟩. ⟨irsn-04072716⟩