The half-life of 76 As

Abstract

In the course of making high-accuracy measurements of arsenic, we found that the most recently published and compiled half-life of 76 As did not agree with our data as well as the earlier accepted value. To redetermine this parameter, 76 As sources were measured on four Ge gamma detector systems, and an exponential function was fitted to the decay data by two different nonlinear least-squares methods. We obtained T 1/2 = 1.09379 days with a standard uncertainty of 0.00045 days. This result is 1.5% higher than the most recent value, but is in agreement with the older, less precise, consensus value.