Evaluated cross-sections of 55Co radionuclide, a non-standard positron emitter for clinical applications

Production cross-sections of Cobalt-55 (T1/2=17.53 h, Eβ+mean= 570 keV, Iβ+total= 76%), a non-standard positron emitter have been evaluated in the energy range of 40 MeV down to the threshold energy of the 56Fe(p,2n)55Co nuclear reaction due to its significance as a potential PET imaging agent in medical applications. Experimental cross-sections of 55Co radionuclide that lies within the scope of this work were collected from the EXFOR database, and renormalized using the latest agreed values of decay data and monitor cross-sections. Simultaneous Evaluation on KALMAN (SOK) code combined with least-squares method was applied to the corrected cross-sections to obtain evaluated cross-sections together with the covariance information. Knowledge of the underlying uncertainties in evaluated nuclear data, i.e., covariances are useful to improve the accuracy of nuclear data.