The theory of counting experiments using pulsed sources: chance coincidences and counting-rate losses

Abstract

The use of artificially pulsed sources of particles in experiments in nuclear physics has already given rise to powerful methods of investigating short-period phenomena and of studying the effects of ‘slow’ neutrons of different energies. On the other hand, the use of such sources introduces complications in counting experiments which are not present when steady sources are employed and it is possible to assume that the time distribution of ionizing events in any counter is a strictly random one. Again, sources which are effectively steady in respect of one counting arrangement are not necessarily so in respect of all. Ordinary cyclotron sources (i.e. cyclotron sources which are not ‘artificially’ pulsed) belong to this class; they have justifiably been considered as steady in the majority of experiments hitherto performed, but the flux of primary particles reaching the target is definitely periodic in time (with the period of the R.F. Voltage applied to the dees), thus a cyclotron will appear as ‘naturally’ pulsed whenever it is used with a counting system for which the effective resolving time is sufficiently short (say < 10−7 sec.).