Accurate measurement of the first excited nuclear state in U235

Ponce, F.; Swanberg, E.; Burke, J.; Henderson, R.; Friedrich, S.

doi:10.1103/PhysRevC.97.054310

Accurate measurement of the first excited nuclear state in ${}^{235}U$

Journal Article · Thu May 10 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Physical Review C

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.97.054310· OSTI ID:1436587

Ponce, F. ^[1]; Swanberg, E. ^[2]; Burke, J. ^[2]; Henderson, R. ^[2]; Friedrich, S. ^[2]

Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

In this paper, we have used superconducting high-resolution radiation detectors to measure the energy level of metastable $$^{235m}\mathrm{U}$$ as 76.737 ± 0.018 eV. The $$^{235m}\mathrm{U}$$ isomer is created from the α decay of $$^{239}\mathrm{Pu}$$ and embedded directly into the detector. When the $$^{235m}\mathrm{U}$$ subsequently decays, the energy is fully contained within the detector and is independent of the decay mode or the chemical state of the uranium. The detector is calibrated using an energy comb from a pulsed UV laser. Finally, a comparable measurement of the metastable $$^{229m}\mathrm{Th}$$ nucleus would enable a laser search for the exact transition energy in $$^{229}\mathrm{Th}{-}^{229m}\mathrm{Th}$$ as a step towards developing the first ever nuclear (baryonic) clock.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); STAR Cryoelectronics LLC, Santa Fe, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: LLNL Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-07NA27344; SC0004359; SC0006214

OSTI ID:: 1436587

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1436821

Journal Information:: Physical Review C, Journal Name: Physical Review C Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 97; ISSN 2469-9985

Publisher:: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited By (4)

Performance of Tantalum STJ X-ray Detectors at Elevated Count Rates Carpenter, M. H.; Ponce, F.; Friedrich, S. Journal of Low Temperature Physics, Vol. 194, Issue 1-2 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10909-018-2071-4	journal	September 2018
Non-linearities in Superconducting Tunnel Junction Radiation Detectors and Their MCA Readout Friedrich, S.; Ponce, F.; Hall, J. A. Journal of Low Temperature Physics https://doi.org/10.1007/s10909-020-02360-2	journal	February 2020
Observation of internal-conversion electrons emitted from Th 229 m produced by β decay of Ac 229 Shigekawa, Y.; Kasamatsu, Y.; Watanabe, E. Physical Review C, Vol. 100, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevc.100.044304	journal	October 2019
Measurements of the band gap of ThF 4 by electron spectroscopy techniques Gouder, T.; Eloirdi, R.; Martin, R. L. Physical Review Research, Vol. 1, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevresearch.1.033005	journal	October 2019

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