Half-lives of 185Os and 103Ru and impact of dead-time correction during half-life measurements

Abstract

The half-lives of 185Os and 103Ru have been measured through repeated activity measurements, and both uncorrected and dead-time corrected data were recorded throughout 93 individual 24-h measurements. Older literature values were not based on dead-time corrected data and yielded a longer half-life, probably as a result of a diminishing dead time during measurement. The resulting half-life data indeed show a resemblance between uncorrected measurements and an older literature value. With proper dead-time correction, however, we can confirm and improve more recent literature values with improved uncertainty budget. We propose the following half-lives: 92.82(6) days for 185Os and 39.261(11) days for 103Ru.