Binomial vs poisson statistics in radiation studies

Abstract

The process of radioactive decay, decay and growth of radioactive species in a radioactive chain, prompt emission(s) from nuclear reactions, conventional activation and cyclic activation are discussed with respect to their underlying statistical density function. By considering the transformation(s) that each nucleus may undergo it is shown that all these processes are fundamentally binomial. Formally, when the number of experiments N is large and the probability of success p is close to zero, the binomial is closely approximated by the Poisson density function. In radiation and nuclear physics, N is always large: each experiment can be conceived of as the observation of the fate of each of the N nuclei initially present. Whether p, the probability that a given nucleus undergoes a prescribed transformation, is close to zero depends on the process and nuclide(s) concerned. Hence, although a binomial description is always valid, the Poisson approximation is not always adequate. Therefore further clarification is provided as to when the binomial distribution must be used in the statistical treatment of detected events.