title: Multichannel statistical analysis of low-level radioactivity in the presence of background counts.
abstract: This paper presents a multichannel extension to the Poisson-based Bayesian statistical analysis of the net count rate in a sample. The derivation gives the net count rate probability density distribution in analytical form. In addition, it presents a Normal approximation that is appropriate when the number of counts is large. The new analysis can exhibit a lower false positive probability than methods that consider the counts for each peak separately or sum the counts for all the expected peaks associated with a radioactive substance.
authors.affiliation: International Safety Research, Canada. FrancoisLemay@i-s-r.ca
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lemay
mesh_terms: D001499:Bayes Theorem; D005720:Gamma Rays; D016012:Poisson Distribution; D011336:Probability; D011874:Radiometry / Q000379:methods*; D013223:Statistics as Topic