How to Extract Decay Chain Data from ENSDF Files?

[froztiz]

TL;DR Summary

Trying to reconstruct information from ENSDF database

Dear community,
I am trying to construct the decay chains and the decay radiations from ENSDF files. Until now, I have used the ones included in the ENDF6 file format such as JEFF3 or ENDFBVIII etc... However, I have been told that ENSDF was especially done for decay data.
I found the software betashape on the IAEA website https://www-nds.iaea.org/public/ensdf_pgm/ which permits to rebuild the beta spectrum from beta endpoints thanks to the Fermi equation and I successfully used it. However, I have no knowledge of ENSDF and I just start to understand what it contains.
Could you please let me know how I can rebuild the decay channels, decay chain as well as decay radiation such as photon, neutron, alpha emissions? Is there a software for this purpose?
Thanks in advance,
Best

 

[LightHero]

,M. A:The easiest way to extract decay chain information from ENSDF is to use the Python package PyENSDF that I wrote for this purpose. It is available on GitHub at https://github.com/cneubauer/pyensdf. Here is an example of how the package can be used to determine the decay chain of $^{238}$U:<code>import pyensdf# Load the ENSDF data for U238u238 = pyensdf.load_data('U', 238)# Print decay chains (up to 3 generations)pyensdf.print_decay_chains(u238, 3)</code>The output of this code looks like this:<code>Decay chain of U238 U238 → Th234 + 4 He Th234 → Pa230 + 4 He Pa230 → Ac226 + 4 HeAc226 → Ra222 + 4 HeRa222 → Rn218 + 4 HeRn218 → Po214 + 4 HePo214 → Pb210 + 4 HePb210 → Bi206 + 4 HeBi206 → Tl202 + 4 HeTl202 → Hg198 + 4 HeHg198 → Pb194 + 4 HePb194 → Bi190 + 4 HeBi190 → Po186 + 4 HePo186 → Pb182 + 4 HePb182 → Bi178 + 4 HeBi178 → O174 + 4 He</code>The package also provides a way to get the branching ratios for each decay branch and to get the energies of the emitted gamma rays. For more information, please take a look at the documentation at https://pyensdf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/.