DECSERVIS: A tool for radioactive decay series visualisation

Abstract

We have developed an interactive visualisation tool, decay series visualisation (DECSERVIS), for exploring the three natural radioactive decay chains. Through DECSERVIS, one can investigate the full decay scheme of any natural decay chain radionuclide to obtain the number of nuclides, their masses, activities, and activity ratios, accounting for all the daughters, starting from initial conditions freely chosen by the user. The tool has been developed particularly for user friendly and flexible operation. Chain decay in closed systems can be explored as a function of time with various graphical presentations such as solid curve and column diagrams or animation. We present several exploration examples related to geological dating. DECSERVIS will be freely available on request. © Versita Warsaw and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.