Nuclear decay data: some applications and needs

Nuclear decay data have broad relevance to a number of basic scientific disciplines as well as to many areas of technology. In this paper we discuss selected applications where decay data are making, or promise to make, important contributions. The following specific illustrations are discussed: the large body of precise new actinide-nuclide decay data produced through the work of the recently concluded IAEA Coordinated Research Program on the Measurement and Evaluation of Transactinium Isotope Nuclear Decay Data; the use of actinide-nuclide half-lives as reference standards in nuclear-data measurements; and the relevance of short-lived fission-product decay data to basic physics and reactor technology and some of the problems and challenges that they present to both theory and experiment