The capture of thermal neutrons by an isotope populates a highly excited state near the neutron separation energy. This level depopulates by emitting high energy gamma-ray transitions with energies and intensities that can be used as a signature for identifying specific isotopes. The National Nuclear Data Center (NNDC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory maintains a website dedicated to this process, known as CapGam. The NNDC has recently updated CapGam to make it more accurate, more user-friendly, and more intuitive. These changes are numerous, and include corrections to rounding errors, changes to the coloring and design, and interactive displays for selecting target nuclei. In addition, a new feature of providing a histogram of the expected gamma-ray spectrum is included, as is the option to export data as a .csv formatted file. The NNDC is also developing a mobile app version of CapGam that will not require an Internet connection. Through these efforts, the NNDC hopes to further advance the study and application of thermal neutron capture decay.
Year
2020
Abstract