$\beta$-particle energy-summing correction for $\beta$-delayed proton emission measurements

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to accurately correct for beta-summing effects in measurements of beta-delayed proton emissions using silicon-strip detectors, improving the precision of proton-decay energy determination.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel approach to determine beta-summing correction by analyzing the shape of the total decay energy distribution and validating it with independent depth measurement techniques.

Findings

The method accurately estimates the mean implantation depth of the nucleus.

The correction improves the accuracy of proton-decay energy measurements.

Validation confirms the reliability of the proposed correction technique.

Abstract

A common approach to studying $\beta$-delayed proton emission is to measure the energy of the emitted proton and corresponding nuclear recoil in a double-sided silicon-strip detector (DSSD) after implanting the $\beta$-delayed proton emitting ($\beta$p) nucleus. However, in order to extract the proton-decay energy, the measured energy must be corrected for the additional energy implanted in the DSSD by the $\beta$-particle emitted from the $\beta$p nucleus, an effect referred to here as $\beta$-summing. We present an approach to determine an accurate correction for $\beta$-summing. Our method relies on the determination of the mean implantation depth of the $\beta$p nucleus within the DSSD by analyzing the shape of the total (proton + recoil + $\beta$) decay energy distribution shape. We validate this approach with other mean implantation depth measurement techniques that take advantage of energy deposition within DSSDs upstream and downstream of the implantation DSSD.