An Investigation into the Harms Dead Time Correction Procedure for Pulse Height Analyzers Using Monte Carlo Modeling Techniques

An automatic dead time correction technique for multichannel pulse height analyzers that does not make use of the usual live time correction has recently been proposed by J. Harms. In order to study the validity of this new correction technique, a Monte Carlo code was written to simulate the response of multichannel pulse height analyzers, incorporating both the Harms and standard live time correction techniques, to a variety of pulse height spectra. Simulated pulse height spectra of the type one might encounter from nuclear radiation detectors under a variety of count rate conditions were generated by the code. It was found that the Harms correction technique gave valid results in all cases tested, whereas the standard live time correction technique did not work properly when the spectral shape changed drastically during the course of the measurement.