The half-life of 19Ne has been measured using a real-time digital multiparametric acquisition system providing an accurate time-stamp and relevant information on the detectors signals for each decay event. An exhaustive offline analysis of the data gave unique access to experimental effects potentially biasing the measurement. After establishing the influence factors impacting the measurement such as after-pulses, pile-up, gain and base line fluctuations, their effects were accurately estimated and the event selection optimized. The resulting half-life, 17.2569±0.0019(stat)±0.0009(syst)~s, is the most precise up to now for 19Ne. It is found in agreement with two recent precise measurements and not consistent with the most recent one [L.J. Broussard {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf112}, 212301 (2014)] by 3.0 standard deviations. The full potential of the technique for nuclei with half-lives of a few seconds is discussed.
@article{arxiv.1709.09415,
title = {High Precision Measurement of the $^{19}$Ne Half-life using real-time digital acquisition},
author = {C. Fontbonne and P. Ujić and F. de Oliveira Santos and X. Fléchard and F. Rotaru and N. L. Achouri and V. Girard Alcindor and B. Bastin and F. Boulay and J. B. Briand and A. M. Sánchez-Benítez and H. Bouzomita and C. Borcea and R. Borcea and B. Blank and B. Carniol and I. Čeliković and P. Delahaye and F. Delaunay and D. Etasse and G. Fremont and G. de France and J. M. Fontbonne and G. F. Grinyer and J. Harang and J. Hommet and A. Jevremović and M. Lewitowicz and I. Martel and J. Mrazek and M. Parlog and J. Poincheval and D. Ramos and C. Spitaels and M. Stanoiu and J. C. Thomas and D. Toprek},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1709.09415},
year = {2017}
}