title: Half-life measurement of 124Sb.
abstract: The half-life of (124)Sb was determined experimentally by following the decay of a source from a radiopure solution with a Centronic IG12 ionisation chamber. Thousands of measurements were performed over a period of 358 days, i.e. about six half-life periods. However, the data analysis was restricted to the first 221 days, in order to limit the dominant uncertainty component associated with the hypothetical possibility of a systematic error on background subtraction. The resulting value for the (124)Sb half-life, 60.212 (11) days, is found to be in very good agreement with published values, but carries a lower uncertainty. Major uncertainty contributions pertain to possible systematic errors in background correction, long-term changes in source-detector geometry and medium- and long-term instability of the instrument. Additional measurements were performed with a high-purity germanium detector to confirm the above value.
authors.affiliation: European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements, Geel, Belgium. jan.paepen@ec.europa.eu
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Paepen
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Altzitzoglou
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Van Ammel
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sibbens
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pommé
mesh_terms: D000965:Antimony; D006207:Half-Life; D011868:Radioisotopes; D035501:Uncertainty; D014894:Weights and Measures
chemical_list: D011868:Radioisotopes; D000965:Antimony