Abstract
This paper describes the production and chemical separation of the 163Ho isotope that will be used in several nuclear physics experiments aiming at measuring the neutrino mass as well as the neutron cross section of the 163Ho isotope. For this purpose, several batches of enriched 162Er have been irradiated at the Institut Laue-Langevin high flux reactor to finally produce 6 mg or 100 MBq of the desired 163Ho isotope. A portion of the Er/Ho mixture is then subjected to a sophisticated chemical separation involving ion exchange chromatography to isolate the Ho product from the Er target material. Before irradiation, a thorough analysis of the impurity content was performed and its implication on the produced nuclide inventory will be discussed.
Highlights
The radioactive isotope 163Ho (t1/2 = 4567 a [1,2]) has gained considerable attention within the physics community due to its very low Q-value for electron capture decay of only 2.8 keV [3,4]
4 mg of batch III was kept for quantitative analysis of the material using ICP-OES, ICP-MS and neutron activation analysis (NAA)
It was shown that a recycling of 162Er is achievable to meet with 163Ho requirements for nuclear physics experiments devoted to measure the mass of the neutrino and to deduce the 163Ho neutron capture cross section at stellar neutron energies
Summary
The radioactive isotope 163Ho (t1/2 = 4567 a [1,2]) has gained considerable attention within the physics community due to its very low Q-value for electron capture decay of only 2.8 keV [3,4] This property and recent developments in high precision calorimetric measurements have facilitated several research projects devoted to measuring the mass of the neutrino. It has been experimentally observed that under fully ionized conditions (such as in stellar environments), the previously stable 163Dy isotope becomes radioactive and decays to 163Ho with a half-life of 47 d [7] This circumstance significantly influences the s-process pathway in the A = 163 mass region, opening an additional branch
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