Speaker
Dr
Stephan Heinitz
(Paul Scherrer Institut)
Description
Nuclear astrophysics requires precise knowledge on cross section data for isotopes involved in stellar nucleosynthesis. For the s-process occurring during stellar evolution, so-called branching point isotopes are especially important, since here neutron capture and β-decay competes. The measurement of cross section data for these radioactive isotopes is a challenging endeavour due to the limited availability and high activity of the material involved.
We will report on the production of such branching point isotopes at the high flux reactor at ILL, Grenoble, France, and the following isotope separation performed at our institute. We have successfully separated 150 GBq 171Tm and 3 GBq 147Pm from hundreds of milligrams of irradiated, enriched lanthanide seed materials. Two suitable targets containing the separated radioisotopes were successfully prepared by molecular plating and provided to CERN n_TOF for neutron capture cross-section measurements. We will briefly report on the production of targets for these isotopes and give preliminary results of their cross section measurements.
This work will also focus on the production, separation and characterization of weighable amounts of the 163Ho isotope, which has also gained a huge interest in the physics community aiming to measure the neutrino mass. Approximately 2 mg of 163Ho have been successfully separated from hundreds of mg of irradiated 162Er. This isotope is also foreseen for neutron cross-section measurements at CERN n_TOF in the near future.
Primary author
Dr
Stephan Heinitz
(Paul Scherrer Institut)
Co-authors
Dr
Dorothea Schumann
(Paul Scherrer Institute)
Dr
Emilio Andrea Maugeri
(Paul Scherrer Institut)
Dr
Rugard Dressler
(Paul Scherrer Institute)
