Half-life of 31Si

TL;DR

This paper reports new gamma-ray spectrometry measurements to determine the half-life of 31Si, addressing gaps in experimental data and uncertainty analysis to improve the accuracy of this important nuclear parameter.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed experimental measurement and uncertainty evaluation of the 31Si half-life, enhancing the reliability of nuclear decay data.

Findings

Measured 31Si half-life as 157.36(26) minutes

Improved the data quality and uncertainty assessment for 31Si half-life

Contributed to more accurate nuclear decay modeling

Abstract

Half-life values are widely used in nuclear chemistry to model the exponential decay of the quantified radionuclides. The analysis of existing data reveals a general lack of information on the performed experiments and an almost complete absence of uncertainty budgets. This is the situation for 31Si, the radionuclide produced via neutron capture reaction recently used to quantify trace amounts of 30Si in a sample of the silicon material highly enriched in 28Si and used for the determination of the Avogadro constant. In order to improve the quality of the now recommended 157.36(26) min value, we carried out repeated observations of the 31Si decay rate via gamma-ray spectrometry measurements. This paper reports the result we obtained, including details of the experiment and the evaluation of the uncertainty.