IMPULSE now in 👀 STEREO 👀

[Sesselmann]

Hi All,

I have just uploaded the latest PC and Mac versions of IMPULSE, this version includes the usual bug fixes as well as a major upgrade for coincidence counting. This involved collecting pulse shapes from both left and right channel, measuring the distortion in both channels and recording a coincidence histogram.

My version functions a bit differently to PRA, as I am treating the default left channel as the primary detector and only using the right channel for coincidence triggering. Therefore you should connect your better detector to the left channel and use any old detector on the right channel for the coincidence pulse.

This setup is great for finding the 0.511 keV annihilation gammas, as well as for Compton scattering experiments.

I am really please with how it works and I think it is going to be a great tool for student experiments and whatever experiments people dream up.

Who wants to be the fist person to try it and give me some feedback ?

Steven

For my experiment I used the following equipment and a weak Na-22 source:

IMPULSE
https://www.gammaspectacular.com/blue/s ... ds/impulse

2 x GS-PRO-V5 (Note the older GS-1100A will work fine for the right channel)
https://www.gammaspectacular.com/blue/g ... /gs-pro-v5

2 x GS-1515-NAI (Detectors need not be identical)
https://www.gammaspectacular.com/blue/g ... s-1515-nai

1 x TRS-X-TRS (Note you can easily make this yourself)
https://www.gammaspectacular.com/blue/g ... /TRS-X-TRS

Typical Coincidence detection setup.

Nice peak at 0.511 shows up immediately

With detectors slightly offset, no peak forms in the spectrum

Placing the detectors on top of each other is a great way to count muons.

[Sesselmann]

Hi All,

This weekend I made quite a bit of headway on Impulse, apart from fixing a whole bunch of annoying bugs, I have improved the following.

Added Stereo/Mono switch on tab1
This change only affects sound card spectrometers, the default switch setting is mono and the state saves to the settings database. This looks like a simple change, but it was quite a bit of work because when we record in stereo mode, there are four pulse possibilities, positive-positive, positive-negative, negative-negative and negative-positive. Unlike PRA the program automatically checks the pulse direction and flips the left and right channel as required to make sure all pulses are treated automatically.

Impulse tab 1

Option to change rolling average on count rate histogram
The original version has a 10 second rolling average, but as I was counting background neutrons at rate of 5 per minute, it was clearly not useful, so I have added a slider which can be set to max 3600 seconds. You can adjust it in single seconds by clicking on the slider and using your left right arrow keys.

Impulse tab 5

Fixed pulse height histogram log mode
Fixed several issues with how the pulse height histogram displayed in log mode.

Impulse Tab 2

Download Windows and Mac version here:

https://github.com/ssesselmann/impulse/releases

Enjoy using Impulse and please report any bugs or suggestions to me.

Steven

PS: If you are upgrading from an older version and end up with a blank screen, renaming the impulse-data folder in your home folder should fix it.

[Sesselmann]

Hi Guys,

Software bugs have a half life on the order of several days, whenever I write enhancements to the Impulse code, it takes me several days to kill all the bugs.

Just uploaded the third new version in as many days, fingers crossed this version is good 🤞

Steven

[Sesselmann]

Impulse Users...

Fixed a bug and made changes to the count rate tab today. new version uploaded.

Steven