Limitations on the precision of atomic meanlife measurements

Uncertainty estimates in atomic meanlife measurements are usually obtained by statistical inference based on the hypothesis that the exponential decay law is exact and the distribution of random errors about it is Gaussian. At some level of precision these parameter evaluation methods must be accompanied by additional hypothesis testing. Possible limitations on these accuracies are examined in the light of recent measurements and calculations, and are quantitatively studied through the simulation and fitting of several alternative models. (C) 1997 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.