Method and circuit for correcting count rate losses of radiation events

A circuit is described for correcting count rate losses of radiation events measured by a radiation detector due to detector deadtimes during an acquisition time, comprising: (a) means for detecting radiation events which are subject to deadtime losses during the acquisition time to obtain a succession of radiation detector event triggers; (b) means for providing for each detected radiation event a deadtime signal which corresponds to the deadtime generated by the detected radiation event; (c) means for subdividing the acquisition time into a succession of evaluation time intervals; (d) means for measuring the fractional amount of deadtime within each evaluation time interval to obtain a measure for count rate losses; (e) means for evaluating from the fractional amount of deadtime a replication probability r according to the equation r=DT /(1-DT) (m-1), wherein DT' is the fractional amount of deadtime and m is a replication number only so large as to make the replication probability be less than one for any particular fractional amount of deadtime; and (f) means for evaluating all radiation events detected between the end of one evaluation time and the end of a following one to generate (f1) one pulse for each detected radiation event between the ends of the succeding evaluation times; and (f2) a sequence of a number of pulses for randomly selected events which selection corresponds to the replication probability and which pulse number corresponds to the replication number