Production of neptunium and plutonium nuclides from uranium carbide using 1.4-GeV protons
Abstract
Accelerator-based techniques are one of the leading ways to produce radioactive nuclei. In this work, the Isotope Separation On-Line method was employed at the CERN-ISOLDE facility to produce neptunium and plutonium from a uranium carbide target material using 1.4-GeV protons. Neptunium and plutonium were laser-ionized and extracted as 30-keV ion beams. A Multi-Reflection Time-of-Flight mass spectrometer was used for ion identification by means of time-of-flight measurements as well as for isobaric separation. Isotope shifts were investigated for the 395.6-nm ground state transition in Np and the 413.4-nm ground state transition in Pu. Rates of Np and Pu ions were measured and compared with predictions of in-target production mechanisms simulated with GEANT4 and FLUKA to elucidate the processes by which these nuclei, which contain more protons than the target nucleus, are formed. Pu is the heaviest nuclide produced and identified at a proton-accelerator-driven facility to date. We report the availability of neptunium and plutonium as two additional elements at CERN-ISOLDE and discuss the limit of accelerator-based isotope production at high-energy proton accelerator facilities for nuclides in the actinide region.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2303.12226,
title = {Production of neptunium and plutonium nuclides from uranium carbide using 1.4-GeV protons},
author = {M. Au and M. Athanasakis-Kaklamanakis and L. Nies and R. Heinke and K. Chrysalidis and U. Köster and P. Kunz and B. Marsh and M. Mougeot and L. Schweikhard and S. Stegemann and Y. Vila Gracia and Ch. E. Düllmann and S. Rothe},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2303.12226},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
12 pages, 12 figures