Decay data of radionuclide <sup>56</sup>Co for high-energy gamma efficiency calibration of detectors

<sup>56</sup>Co, with γ-ray energies covering the ranging from 0.84–3.55 MeV, is an important radionuclide for calibrating Ge detector. Based on the main measurements of D. C. Camp et al. (Camp D C, Meredith G L <ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0375-9474(71)90437-4">1971 <i>Nucl. Phys. A</i> <b>166</b> 349</ext-link>) and M. E. Phelps et al (Phelps M, Sarantites D, Winn W <ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0375-9474(70)91054-7">1970 <i>Nucl. Phys. A</i> <b>149</b> 647</ext-link>). before 2000, the probability of γ-ray emission is evaluated and recommended. The values reported by D. C. Camp, however, are systematically lower in high energy range. In this work, using the experimental measurements obtained from the Nuclear Science Reference Library, the main decay data, such as half-life and γ-ray emission probabilities, are evaluated and summarized. In the <i>E</i><sub>γ </sub>< 2.5 MeV energy region, the new evaluation data in this work are in good agreement with the results of the ENSDF evaluation (Huo J, Huo S, Yang D <ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nds.2011.04.004">2011 <i>Nucl. Data Sheets</i> <b>112</b> 1513</ext-link>) and the summary report published by IAEA in 1991 (Bambynek W, Barta T, Jedlovszky R, Christmas P, Coursol N, Debertin K, Helmer R, Nichols A, Schima F, Yoshizawa Y 1991 report IAEATECDOC-619). However, in the high-energy region, i.e., in the <i>E</i><sub>γ </sub>> 2.5 MeV energy region, the present work gives lower values than the other evaluation data. The deviation at 3.4 MeV is as high as 2.7%. Rationality of the present evaluation and corrected method will be dependent on new measurements, and more precise standard data are desirable. The datasets presented in this paper, including the ENDF and ENSDF format decay data files for <sup>56</sup>Co, may be available at <ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.57760/sciencedb.j00213.00169">https://doi.org/10.57760/sciencedb.j00213.00169</ext-link>.