GAUSS VII, a computer program for the analysis of #betta#-ray spectra from Ge semiconductor spectrometers

A new computer program, GAUSS VII, has been written to determine #betta#-ray energies and intensities from #betta#-ray spectra obtained with Ge semiconductor spectrometers. The preliminary portions of the program can determine the energy and width calibration equations, locate individual peaks and define 'peak regions' that are significantly above the local spectral background. The user may edit these lists of peaks and regions. Each peak region is fitted with one or more components in which the peaks are represented by a Gaussian function or a Gaussian with one or more additive exponential tails. A step-like background function can be used with each component. The program will automatically add additional peaks to a region if needed to improve the fit. The quality of the results depends primarily on the ability to define a good spectral region for an analysis and the ability to recycle to determine the proper number of components. The #betta#-ray energies and intensities are computed from the resulting Gaussian positions and peak areas. To allow the user to determine the best results, the results from all the fits to each region can be printed and line-printer plots of the results can be made. (orig.)