Lifetime measurements of 214Po and 212Po with the CTF liquid scintillator detector at LNGS

Abstract

We have studied the α-decays of 214Po into 210Pb and of 212Po into 208Pb tagged by the coincidence with the preceding β-decays from 214Bi and 212Bi, respectively. The 222Rn, 232Th, and 220Rn sources used were sealed inside quartz vials and inserted in the Counting Test Facility at the underground Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy. We find that the mean lifetime of 214Po is (236.00 ± 0.42(stat) ± 0.15(syst)) μs and that of 212Po is (425.1 ± 0.9(stat) ± 1.2(syst)) ns. Our results, obtained from data with signal-to-background ratio larger than 1000, reduce the overall uncertainties and are compatible with previous measurements. © The Author(s) 2013.