Fast and nonselective on-line mass separation of neutron-rich isotopes produced in proton-induced fission

Abstract

On-line mass separation of short-lived radionuclides, based on the use of thermalized primary ions from nuclear reactions, termed as an ion guide method, has recently been widely applied in the spectroscopy of both proton-rich and neutron-rich exotic nuclei. The technique has been found to be applicable to all elements and it has allowed the detection of the mass-analyzed activities with half-lives as short as 0.1 ms. The ion guide isotope separator on-line, IGISOL, has recently been used to discover over ten new short-lived isotopes or isomers produced in the nearly symmetric fission of uranium induced by 20 MeV protons. In addition to applications in nuclear-structure physics and astrophysics the present experiments can also be utilized in studies of basic collision processes between ions, atoms and electrons in weakly ionized plasmas.