Search results for "actinide"
showing 10 items of 111 documents
Direct mass measurements of the heaviest elements with Penning traps
2013
Abstract Penning-trap mass spectrometry (PTMS) is a mature technique to provide atomic masses with highest precision. Applied to radionuclides it enables us to investigate their nuclear structure via binding energies and derived quantities such as nucleon separation energies. Recent progress in slowing down radioactive ion beams in buffer gas cells in combination with advanced ion-manipulation techniques has opened the door to access even the elements above fermium by PTMS. Such elements are produced in complete fusion–evaporation reactions of heavy ions with lead, bismuth, and actinide targets at very low rates. Pioneering high-precision mass measurements of nobelium and lawrencium isotope…
Liquid-scintillation detection of preseparated 257Rf with the SISAK-system
2005
Abstract The fast liquid–liquid extraction system SISAK with continuous liquid scintillation detection was coupled to the Berkeley Gas-filled Separator to enable studies of the chemical properties of α -decaying transactinide elements. The preseparated transactinide 257Rf (4.7 s), was transported via a He/KCl-jet directly into the scintillation solution. This permitted the first unambiguous detection of transactinide atoms by the means of the α -liquid scintillation detectors of the SISAK-system. During the experiment, 89 257Rf atoms were observed. The type of events observed correspond well with the expectations based on half-lives, decay branches and transport- and hold-up times. The succ…
In-beam study of 253No using the SAGE spectrometer
2017
The heavy actinide nucleus 253No (Z = 102) was studied using the (S)ilicon (A)nd (Ge)rmanium (SAGE) spectrometer allowing simultaneous in-beam $\gamma$ -ray and conversion electron spectroscopy at the accelerator laboratory of the University of Jyvaskyla. Using the recoil-tagging technique, $\gamma$ -electron coincidences have allowed for the extension of the level scheme in the lower-spin region of the yrast band. In addition, internal conversion coefficient (ICC) measurements to establish the multipolarity of transitions have been performed. Measurement of the interband-intraband branching ratios supports the assignment of the Nilsson band-head configuration $9/2^{-}[734]$ assigned in pre…
Recent progress in laser spectroscopy of the actinides
2020
The interest to perform laser spectroscopy in the heaviest elements arises from the strong impact of relativistic effects, electron correlations and quantum electrodynamics on their atomic structure. Once this atomic structure is well understood, laser spectroscopy also provides access to nuclear properties such as spins, mean square charge radii and electromagnetic moments in a nuclear-model independent way. This is of particular interest for the heaviest actinides around $N = 152$, a region of shell stabilized deformed nuclei. The experimental progress of laser spectroscopy in this region benefitted from continuous methodological and technical developments such as the introduction of buff…
Average charge states of heavy and superheavy ions passing through a rarified gas: Theory and experiment
2013
The average charge states $\overline{q}$ of heavy and superheavy ions (atomic numbers $Z=80$--114) passing through He gas are studied experimentally and theoretically. Experimental data were measured at the gas-filled recoil separator, i.e., the TransActinide Separator and Chemistry Apparatus (TASCA) at GSI Darmstadt, for ion energies of a few hundred keV/u at gas pressures of 0.2 to 2.0 mbar. An attempt is made to describe experimental $\overline{q}$ values by means of atomic calculations of the binding energies and electron-loss and electron-capture cross sections. The influence of the gas-density effect is included in the calculations. The calculated $\overline{q}$ reproduce the experime…
Fusion reaction Ca48+Bk249 leading to formation of the element Ts ( Z=117 )
2019
The heaviest currently known nuclei, which have up to 118 protons, have been produced in 48Ca induced reactions with actinide targets. Among them, the element tennessine (Ts), which has 117 protons, has been synthesized by fusing 48Ca with the radioactive target 249Bk, which has a half-life of 327 d. The experiment was performed at the gas-filled recoil separator TASCA. Two long and two short α decay chains were observed. The long chains were attributed to the decay of 294Ts. The possible origin of the short-decay chains is discussed in comparison with the known experimental data. They are found to fit with the decay chain patterns attributed to 293Ts. The present experimental results confi…
Neck fragmentation in fission and quasifission of heavy and superheavy nuclei
2009
The generalized approach is proposed for the ternary fission and the neck fragmentation of the dinuclear system formed in the heavy ion quasifission reactions. The light-charged-particles accompanied the fission and quasifission are the valuable probes for studies of the dynamics of the hyperdeformed nuclear configurations with neck. The developed model describes well the light-charged-particle emission probabilities and their mass distributions in the ternary fission of actinide nuclei. The model is also applied to analyze the double differential distributions of the protons and α-particles accompanied fragmentation in the reaction 86 Kr + 206 Pb at E Kr = 500 and 600 MeV. It was found th…
Manifestations of Clustering in Fission of Excited Actinides
2003
A new, graphical way of extracting important physical information from the total kinetic-energy—mass (TKE—M) distributions of the nuclear reaction products is presented. The resulting images indicate for the first time the presence of the Ni—Mo and Ge—Mo fission modes in the fission of Np nuclei at intermediate excitation energies.
The recoil transfer chamber—An interface to connect the physical preseparator TASCA with chemistry and counting setups
2011
Performing experiments with transactinide elements demands highly sensitive detection methods due to the extremely low production rates (one-atom-at-a-time conditions). Preseparation with a physical recoil separator is a powerful method to significantly reduce the background in experiments with sufficiently long-lived isotopes (t1/2≥0.5 s). In the last years, the new gas-filled TransActinide Separator and Chemistry Apparatus (TASCA) was installed and successfully commissioned at GSI. Here, we report on the design and performance of a Recoil Transfer Chamber (RTC) for TASCA—an interface to connect various chemistry and counting setups with the separator. Nuclear reaction products recoiling o…
First ionization potential of the heaviest actinide lawrencium, element 103
2016
The first ionization potential (IP1 ) of element 103, lawrencium (Lr), has been successfully determined for the first time by using a newly developed method based on a surface ionization process. The measured IP 1 value is 4.9630.08 0.07 eV. This value is the smallest among those of actinide elements and is in excellent agreement with the value of 4.963(15) eV predicted by state-of-the-art relativistic calculations also performed in this work. Our results strongly support that the Lr atom has an electronic configuration of [Rn]7s 2 5f 14 7p 1 1/2 , which is influenced by strong relativistic effects. The present work provides a reliable benchmark for theoretical calculations and also opens t…