Testing the Physics of Nuclear Isomers
Abstract
For much of the past century, physicists have searched for methods to control the release of energy stored in an atom's nucleus. Nuclear fission reactors have been one successful approach, but finding other methods to capitalize on this potential energy source have been elusive. One possible source being explored is nuclear isomers. An isomer is a long-lived excited state of an atom's nucleus--a state in which decay back to the nuclear ground state is inhibited. The nucleus of an isomer thus holds an enormous amount of energy. If scientists could develop a method to release that energy instantaneously in a gamma-ray burst, rather than slowly over time, they could use it in a nuclear battery. Research in the late 1990s indicated that scientists were closer to developing such a method--using x rays to trigger the release of energy from the nuclear isomer hafnium-178m ({sup 178m}Hf). To further investigate these claims, the Department of Energy (DOE) funded a collaborative project involving Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and Argonne national laboratories that was designed to reproduce those earlier results.
- Authors:
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE
- OSTI Identifier:
- 883612
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-TR-218474
TRN: US200615%%177
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- Resource Type:
- Technical Report
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS; DECAY; EXCITED STATES; FISSION; GROUND STATES; ISOMERS; PHYSICS; POTENTIAL ENERGY; TESTING
Citation Formats
Hazi, A. Testing the Physics of Nuclear Isomers. United States: N. p., 2006.
Web. doi:10.2172/883612.
Hazi, A. Testing the Physics of Nuclear Isomers. United States. doi:10.2172/883612.
Hazi, A. Wed .
"Testing the Physics of Nuclear Isomers". United States.
doi:10.2172/883612. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/883612.
@article{osti_883612,
title = {Testing the Physics of Nuclear Isomers},
author = {Hazi, A},
abstractNote = {For much of the past century, physicists have searched for methods to control the release of energy stored in an atom's nucleus. Nuclear fission reactors have been one successful approach, but finding other methods to capitalize on this potential energy source have been elusive. One possible source being explored is nuclear isomers. An isomer is a long-lived excited state of an atom's nucleus--a state in which decay back to the nuclear ground state is inhibited. The nucleus of an isomer thus holds an enormous amount of energy. If scientists could develop a method to release that energy instantaneously in a gamma-ray burst, rather than slowly over time, they could use it in a nuclear battery. Research in the late 1990s indicated that scientists were closer to developing such a method--using x rays to trigger the release of energy from the nuclear isomer hafnium-178m ({sup 178m}Hf). To further investigate these claims, the Department of Energy (DOE) funded a collaborative project involving Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and Argonne national laboratories that was designed to reproduce those earlier results.},
doi = {10.2172/883612},
journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Jan 25 00:00:00 EST 2006},
month = {Wed Jan 25 00:00:00 EST 2006}
}
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The research supported by this grant is aimed at probing the limits of the Standard Model through precision low-energy nuclear physics. The work of the PI (AWL) and additional personnel is to provide theory input needed for a number of potentially high-impact experiments, notably, hadronic parity violation, Dark Matter direct detection and searches for permanent electric dipole moments (EDMs) in nucleons and nuclei. In all these examples, a quantitative understanding of low-energy nuclear physics from the fundamental theory of strong interactions, Quantum Chromo-Dynamics (QCD), is necessary to interpret the experimental results. The main theoretical tools used and developed in thismore »