Analysis of gamma-ray spectra with spectral unmixing — Part I: Determination of the characteristic limits (decision threshold and statistical uncertainty) for measurements of environmental aerosol filters

International audiencePoisson-statistics based spectral unmixing has been shown to be an efficient analysis tool for the radionuclides activity estimation from gamma-ray spectrometry measurements. However, the calculation of the corresponding characteristic limits has not been investigated so far. In this paper, we present the quantification of the decision threshold and the limits of the coverage interval for the metrological use of such spectral unmixing algorithms. The proposed approach is evaluated and validated with simulated spectra of HPGe and NaI measurements by comparing the results to characteristic limits calculated from Monte-Carlo simulations. We focus particularly on the validation of the method for the metrological analysis of environmental measurements, for which the low-level activity quantification requires an accurate characteristic limits determination. Along with the instrument calibration, we establish a metrological analysis tool by using the spectral unmixing algorithm for environmental aerosol filters measured by gamma-ray spectrometry