The role of gamma-ray spectrometry and Monte Carlo simulation in the characterisation of meteorites

Abstract

Gamma-ray spectrometry has proved to be a powerful tool in meteorite identification due to the presence of certain mid- and long-lived cosmogenic radionuclides in such samples. In particular, this technique can be made totally non-destructive by measuring each sample as-it-is and calculating the full-energy-peak efficiency through Monte Carlo simulation of the full radionuclide decay. In general, this framework can be applied whenever it is needed to characterise non-destructivery the γ-ray emission of a sample with non-standard geometry.