Development towards 53Mn Accelerator Mass Spectrometry capabilities at the University of Notre Dame

Abstract

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) with 53Mn has geological applications as a chronometer for exposure and burial times for discontinuously deposited sediments. It has also been used to search for evidence of recent supernovae events, and proposed as a proxy to monitor the variation in the galactic cosmic ray spectrum over time. The current sensitivity limit amongst active facilities is 53Mn/ 55Mn = 3×10−13 while a sensitivity of 53Mn/ 55Mn = 1×10−13 is necessary to fully exploit 53Mn’s capabilities. At the University of Notre Dame’s Nuclear Science Laboratory (NSL), a 10 MV tandem accelerator and a Browne–Buechner Spectrograph operated as a gas-filled magnet were used to separate 53Mn from 53Cr. Samples covering ranges of 53Mn/ 55Mn = 10−10−10−8 were measured for the first time at the NSL using various settings resulting in a background level of 53Mn/ 55Mn =6.2(3)×10−11. Analysis of the results, descriptions of experimental settings, and further explorations will be presented in this paper.