Total Absorption Measurement of the Beta Decay of 104Mo

With the discovery of the pandemonium effect, the necessity of total absorption measurements of beta decay quickly became apparent. Of particular interest in the field of nuclear energy are accurate measurements of the beta feeding intensities of fission products. To this end, the beta feeding intensities of 104Mo were measured using the Modular Total Absorption Spectrometer (MTAS) at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). Due to a complicated level scheme of the daughter nucleus, 104Tc, this isotope reveals a unique need to study low lying states populated by beta decay. This presentation will present the difference between existing high precision measurements and our total absorption measurements. Additional attention will be given to the gamma spectrum at low lying levels including a discussion of the challenges of disentangling multi-gamma cascades with individual gamma energies less than 150 keV and the presence of conversion electrons.