Half-Life Measurement of 124Sb

The half-life of 124Sb was determined experimentally by following the decay of a source from a radiopure solution with a Centronic IG12 ionisation chamber. Thousands of measurements were performed over a period of 358days, i.e.about six half-life periods. However, the data analysis was restricted to the first 221 days, in order to limit the dominant uncertainty component associated with the hypothetical possibility of asystematic error on background subtraction. The resulting value for the 124Sb half-life, 60.212 (11)days, is found to be in very good agreement with published values, but carries a lower uncertainty. Major uncertainty contributions pertain to possible systematic errors in background correction, long-term changes in source-detector geometry and medium- and long-term instability of the instrument. Additional measurements were performed with a high-purity germanium detector to confirm the above value.JRC.DG.D.5-Nuclear physic