Fine Structure in the alpha decays of 226U and 230Pu

Abstract

The nuclei 226U and 230Pu have been populated via reactions involving 208Pb targets bombarded by 22Ne and 26Mg projectiles. Fusion-evaporation residues were separated in-flight using a gas-filled recoil separator. A position-sensitive Si-strip detector was employed at the focal plane in order to identify correlated α-decay chains. Two fine structure α-decay lines have been observed. The first, with an energy of 7385(5) keV, is assigned as the α decay from 226U to the first excited 2+ state of 222Th. The second line, observed for the first time in this work, has an energy of 6961(30) keV and is assigned as the α decay from 230Pu to the first excited 2+ state of 226U. The excitation energy of the first excited 2+ state in 226U was determined to be 96(25) keV, giving an estimate of the deformation parameter β2≃ 0.20.