Lifetime measurements of unbound nuclear states

Abstract

A Differential Plunger device for measuring the lifetimes of Unbound Nuclear States (DPUNS) is currently being built at the University of Manchester. The plunger has been designed to be able to work with the proton-, alpha-, beta- and isomer-tagging methods using the JUROGAM II - RITU - GREAT setup at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Valuable nuclear-structure information can be investigated from the measurement of lifetimes in proton-and alpha-unbound nuclei. To date, nuclear structure information from proton emission has been obtained from a comparison of the experimentally measured half-life with that predicted from various tunnelling calculations. A crucial parameter required to perform these calculations is the deformation of the parent nucleus involved in the decay, which in all cases to date, has only ever been estimated or calculated from theory. DPUNS aims to address this logical weakness through the measurement of the lifetimes of excited states in these unbound nuclei. The first measurement of a lifetime in a proton-unbound nucleus was recently obtained for 109I. The results from this measurement were discussed along with the future physics programme that can be performed with DPUNS.