Direct determination of the hit locations from experimental HPGe pulses

The gamma-tracking technique optimises the determination of the energy and emission angle of gamma-rays detected by modern segmented HPGe detectors. This entails the determination, using the delivered pulse shapes, of the interaction points of the gamma-ray within the crystal. The direct method presented here allows the localisation of the hits using only a large sample of pulses detected in the actual operating conditions. No external crystal scanning system or pulse shape simulation code is needed. In order to validate this method, it is applied to sets of pulses obtained using the University of Liverpool scanning system. The hit locations are determined by the method with good precision.