A modification of the total peak area (TPA) method for gamma ray spectra

A modification of background counting calculations were made in order to increase the precision for the peak area calculation by the use of the TPA method. It was proposed to replace the number of counts on the left and right limit of the peak by other numbers obtained as a result of manifold parabolic interpolation according to Bessel. A ratio of variance of modified and unmodified TPA methods was calculated for various ratios of peak area to background and for various FWHMs. For small values of the peak area to background ratio, the variance ratio is about 0.5. (author)