Self-calibration techniques of underwater gamma ray spectrometers

In situ continuous monitoring of radioactivity in the water environment has many advantages compared to sampling and analysis techniques but a few shortcomings as well. Apart from the problems encountered in the assembly of the carrying autonomous systems, continuous operation some times alters the response function of the detectors. For example, the continuous operation of a photomultiplier tube results in a shift in the measured spectrum towards lower energies, making thus necessary the re-calibration of the detector. In this work, it is proved, that when measuring radioactivity in seawater, a photo peak around 50 keV will be always present in the measured spectrum. This peak is stable, depends only on the scattering rates of photons in seawater and, when it is detectable, can be used in conjunction with other peaks (40K and/or 208Tl) as a reference peak for the continuous calibration of the detector.