@article{ececbda290354b3cb46bea187a1dc14e,
title = "The use of accelerators for arhaeological dating",
abstract = "A description is given of the tandem accelerator mass spectrometer which has recently been installed at the University of Arizona. This system is the primary instrument of a National Science Foundation Regional Instrumentation Facility. Results of tests of its operation are presented. Several experiments on archaeological and other types of samples are described.",
author = "Donahue, {D. J.} and Jull, {A. J.T.} and Zabel, {T. H.} and Damon, {P. E.}",
note = "Funding Information: In 1978 the University of Arizona received a grant from the National Science Foundation to establish a Regional Facility for Radioisotope Dating. The primary instrument of this facility, a tandem accelerator and associated injection and analysis equipment, was designed and constructed by Dr K.H. Purser and personnel of the General Ionex Corporation, Newburyport, Massachusetts. The design was based on experiments performed by a group of scientists from the Universities of Rochester and Toronto and from General lonex, using the Rochester M.P. Tandem \[1\],a nd by Hedges et al. \[2\] at Oxford. The instrument was delivered to Tucson in the fall of 1981. In this paper, we will describe the testing and use of the instrument and present results of measurements performed to determine the ~4C content of several archaeological artifacts. The isotope ~4C is produced when cosmic-ray neutrons react with nitrogen in the earth's atmosphere through the reaction Nl4(n,p)14C. The 14C ions combine with oxygen to form CO 2. As described by Willard Libby and his coworkers \[3\],a ll living organisms absorb ~4C though the carbon cycle and contain an equilibrium isotope ratio of approximately 14C/12C = 10 -12. When the organism dies, its 14C content decays with a half-life of 5730 y, so that a measurement of the ~4C/12C content of an object when compared to the equilibrium ratio of living organisms can be used to determine the time since that object was removed from the carbon cycle. In so-called conventional experiments, which have been performed since the late 1940s, the 14C content of an object is determined by measuring the rate of decay of the 14C. The technique has been tremendously successful and has contributed to our knowledge in a variety of disciplines ranging from archaeology and astrophysics to zoology. However, the technique suffers from the limitation that in order to detect a 14C nucleus, one must wait for it to decay. To detect, for example,",
year = "1983",
month = dec,
day = "15",
doi = "10.1016/0167-5087(83)91016-5",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "218",
pages = "425--429",
journal = "Nuclear Instruments and Methods In Physics Research",
issn = "0167-5087",
publisher = "North-Holland Publ Co",
number = "1-3",
}