A charge plunger device to measure the lifetimes of excited nuclear states where transitions are dominated by internal conversion

L. Barber*, J. Heery, D.M. Cullen, B.S. Nara Singh, R.-D. Herzberg, C. Müller-Gatermann, G. Beeton, M. Bowry, A. Dewald, T. Grahn, P.T. Greenlees, A. Illana, R. Julin, S. Juutinen, J.M. Keatings, M. Luoma, D. O'Donnell, J. Ojala, J. Pakarinen, P. RahkilaP. Ruotsalainen, M. Sandzelius, J. Sarén, J. Sinclair, J.F. Smith, J. Sorri, P. Spagnoletti, H. Tann, J. Uusitalo, J. Vilhena, G. Zimba

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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    Abstract

    A charge plunger device has been commissioned based on the DPUNS plunger (Taylor et al., 2013) using the in-flight mass separator MARA at the University of Jyväskylä. The 152(32S,4n)180 reaction was used to populate excited states in 180Pt. A lifetime measurement of the 21+ state was performed by applying the charge plunger technique, which relies on the detection of the charge state-distribution of recoils rather than the detection of the emitted γ rays. This state was a good candidate to test the charge plunger technique as it has a known lifetime and depopulates through a converted transition that competes strongly with γ-ray emission. The lifetime of 21+ the state was measured to be 480 (10) ps, which is consistent with previously reported lifetimes that relied on the standard γ-ray techniques. The charge plunger technique is a complementary approach to lifetime measurements of excited states that depopulate through both γ-ray emission and internal conversion. In cases where it is not possible to detect Doppler-shifted γ rays, for example, in heavy nuclei where internal conversion dominates, it may well be the only feasible lifetime analysis approach.
    Original languageEnglish
    Article number164454
    Number of pages8
    JournalNuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
    Volume979
    Early online date25 Jul 2020
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2020

    Keywords

    • charge plunger
    • plunger
    • nuclear-state lifetimes
    • RDDS
    • DDCM

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