Proton 3D tracking and emission time from a short-lived isomer with ACTAR TPC

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at the GANIL/LISE3 facility to produce the 10+ isomer of 54Ni and measure its proton radioactivity decay branches. The proton detection was achieved with the ACTAR TPC device that enabled the separation of the small signal of the emitted proton from the large signal of the implanted ion, while the decay half-life is of the order of 150 ns. From the measured data, the emitted proton track length and the decay time of the ion can be extracted simultaneously. The full proton radioactivity pattern could be established, with two emission branches and their relative branching ratio. Data processing and analysis that allowed to identify and separate the ion and the proton signals in order to reconstruct the particles trajectories and decay time are detailed. The evaluation of the detection efficiency for the proton radioactivity branches based on a full simulation is described.