Abstract
A scintillation detection system has been built for the determination of beta decay Q-values and ground state branching of short-lived fission products. The beta-ray response of the well-type plastic scintillators was determined by direct measurements of monoenergetic beta rays with energies up to 5 MeV. The beta-ray energy calibration, determined by continuous beta-ray spectra and internal conversion electrons, was found to have a partially quadratic energy dependence. A technique for using gamma-ray Compton spectra to obtain the energy calibration is described. The method of analysis of the distorted beta-ray spectra, which is successful in correcting the distortions down to one-tenth of the maximum beta-ray energy, allows the number of fit parameters to be reduced by application of constraints based on knowledge of the energy level scheme of the daughter nucleus. Sample results, which illustrate the quality of the fits to beta-ray spectra, are presented for 32P and 137Xe.
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