THE DECAY OF Pm149

Abstract

The 52.8-hour activity of Pm¹⁴⁹ has been investigated using a high resolution beta spectrometer, a lens type coincidence spectrometer, and a scintillation spectrometer in conjunction with a multichannel analyzer. The beta spectrum was found to consist of two groups with maximum energies of 1.072 ± 0.002 Mev and 0.786 ± 0.004 Mev, and intensities of 97.1 ± 0.4% and 2.9 ± 0.4% respectively. A gamma ray of energy 285.7 ± 0.3 kev was found to be in coincidence with the 0.786-Mev beta group. No other gamma rays with intensities greater than 0.1% were found. The K conversion coefficient for the 286-kev transition was measured to be 0.075 ± 0.008. This together with the values of 6.5 ± 0.7 and 4 ± 1 obtained for the K/L and L/M conversion ratios respectively indicate that this transition is M1 in character with less than 10% E2 admixture.