The half-life of the superallowed Fermi ${\beta }^{+}$ emitter ${}^{18}$Ne has been determined to $\pm 0.07\%$ precision by counting 1042 keV delayed $\gamma$ rays that follow approximately $8\%$ of all $\beta$ decays. The deduced half-life, $T_{1/2}=1.6648\left(11\right)$ s, includes a $0.7\%$ correction that accounts for systematic losses associated with rate-dependent detector pulse pileup that was determined using a recently developed $\gamma$-ray photopeak-counting technique. This result is a factor of two times more precise than, and in excellent agreement with, a previous lower-statistics measurement that employed the same experimental setup. High-resolution $\beta$-delayed $\gamma$-ray spectroscopy results for the relative $\gamma$-ray intensities and $\beta$-decay branching ratios to excited states in the daughter ${}^{18}$F are also presented.

• Received 15 February 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.87.045502