[Gate-users] Question about Isotope Decay

[Francesco Collamati]

Dear all,
I have a question about how Gate manages radioactive decays of isotopes.
I run Gate in 2 different machines. One is my MacBook Pro (10.8.2, Gate v6.2), and the other is the department farm (some Unix, Gate v6.1).
I found out a slightly heavy different behavior between these two systems.
Considering for example a point-like source of Cs137 (beta decaying in Ba137*, then decaying via 662keV gamma), and running the SAME macro on both system, in my mac the Cesium decays in Barium, but the latter remains in its unstable isotope without decaying. In the other system also the Barium isotope decays emitting a 662keV gamma in its stable isotope.

To sum up, my question is: which one is the "correct" behavior?
How can I control it?! is it a compiling option?
I've tried to use also in my system (v6.2) the old libraries for radioactive decays (3.3 instead of 3.4), but with no results.

Thanks

Francesco

ph.D student @
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare - Università di Roma Sapienza