Computational generation of tailored radionuclide libraries for alpha-particle and gamma-ray spectrometry

Radionuclide identification is a radioanalytical method employed in various scientific disciplines that utilize alpha-particle or gamma-ray spectrometric assays, ranging from astrophysics to nuclear medicine. Radionuclide libraries in conventional radionuclide identification systems are crafted in a manual fashion, accompanying labor-intensive and error-prone user tasks and hindering library customization. This research presents a computational algorithm and the architecture of its dedicated software that can automatically generate tailored radionuclide libraries. Progenitor-progeny recurrence relations were modeled to enable recursive computation of radionuclide subsets. This theoretical concept was incorporated into open-source software called and validated against four actinide decay series and 12 radioactive substances, including a uranium-glazed legacy Fiestaware, natural uranium and thorium sources, a <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><a:mmultiscripts><a:mi>Ra</a:mi><a:mprescripts/><a:none/><a:mn>226</a:mn></a:mmultiscripts></a:math> sample, and the medical radionuclides <b:math xmlns:b="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><b:mmultiscripts><b:mi>Ac</b:mi><b:mprescripts/><b:none/><b:mn>225</b:mn></b:mmultiscripts><b:mo>,</b:mo><b:mo> </b:mo><b:mmultiscripts><b:mi>Lu</b:mi><b:mprescripts/><b:none/><b:mn>177</b:mn></b:mmultiscripts></b:math>, and <c:math xmlns:c="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><c:mmultiscripts><c:mi>Tc</c:mi><c:mprescripts/><c:none/><c:mrow><c:mn>99</c:mn><c:mi>m</c:mi></c:mrow></c:mmultiscripts></c:math>. The developed algorithm yielded radionuclide libraries for all the tested specimens within minutes, demonstrating its efficiency and applicability across diverse scenarios. The proposed approach introduces a framework for computerized radionuclide library generation, thereby trivializing library-driven radionuclide identification and facilitating the spectral recognition of unregistered radionuclides in radiation spectrometry. Published by the American Physical Society 2024