Nuclear structure and depletion of nuclear isomers using electron linacs
- US Army Research Laboratory, 2800 Powder Mill Road, Adelphi, MD 20783 (United States)
- US Army Research Laboratory, 2800 Powder Mill Road, Adelphi, MD 20783 USA and Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (United States)
- Ecopulse, Inc., P. O. Box 528, Springfield, VA 22150 (United States)
- Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, 141980 (Russian Federation)
Long-lived nuclear excited states (isomers) have proven important to understanding nuclear structure. With some isomers having half-lives of decades or longer, and intrinsic energy densities reaching 10{sup 12} J/kg, they have also been suggested for a wide range of applications. The ability to effectively transfer a population of nuclei from an isomer to shorter-lived levels will determine the feasibility of any applications. Here is described a first demonstration of the induced depletion of a population of the 438 year isomer of {sup 108}Ag to its 2.38 min ground state, using 6 MeV bremsstrahlung from a modified medical electron linac. The experiment suggests refinements to be implemented in the future and how a similar approach might be applied to study induced depletion of the 1200 year isomer of {sup 166}Ho.
- OSTI ID:
- 22117015
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1525, Issue 1; Conference: 22. international conference on application of accelerators in research and industry, Ft. Worth, TX (United States), 5-10 Aug 2012; Other Information: (c) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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