Determination of the half-life of213Fr with high precision

Abstract

High-precision measurement of half-life and ${Q}_{\ensuremath{\alpha}}$ value of neutral and highly charged $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ emitters is a major subject of investigation currently. In this framework, we recently pushed half-life measurements of neutral emitters to a precision of a few per mil. This result was achieved by using different techniques and apparatuses at Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (INFN-LNS) and GSI Darmstadt. Here we report on ${}^{213}$Fr half-life determination [${T}_{1/2}$(${}^{213}$Fr) = 34.14$\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}$0.06 s] at INFN-LNS, detailing the measurement protocol used. Direct comparison with the accepted value in the literature shows a discrepancy of more than three sigma. We propose this new value as a reference, discussing previous experiments.