Half-life of the superallowed beta(+) emitter Ne-18

G. F. Grinyer*, M. B. Smith, C. Andreoiu, A. N. Andreyev, G. C. Ball, P. Bricault, R. S. Chakrawarthy, J. J. Daoud, P. Finlay, P. E. Garrett, G. Hackman, B. Hyland, J. R. Leslie, A. C. Morton, C. J. Pearson, A. A. Phillips, M. A. Schumaker, C. E. Svensson, J. J. Valiente-Dobon, S. J. WilliamsE. F. Zganjar

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The half-life of Ne-18 has been determined by detecting 1042-keV gamma rays in the daughter F-18 following the superallowed-Fermi beta(+) decay of samples implanted at the center of the 8 pi gamma-ray spectrometer, a spherical array of 20 HPGe detectors. Radioactive Ne-18 beams were produced on-line, mass-separated, and ionized using an electron-cyclotron-resonance ionization source at the ISAC facility at TRIUMF in Vancouver, Canada. This is the first high-precision half-life measurement of a superallowed Fermi beta decay to utilize both a large-scale HPGe spectrometer and the isotope separation on-line technique. The half-life of Ne-18, 1.6656 +/- 0.0019 s, deduced following a 1.4 sigma correction for detector pulse pile-up, is four times more precise than the previous world average. As part of an investigation into potential systematic effects, the half-life of the heavier isotope Ne-23 was determined to be 37.11 +/- 0.06 s, a factor of 2 improvement over the previous precision.

Original languageEnglish
Article numberARTN 025503
Number of pages6
JournalPhysical Review C
Volume76
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2007

Keywords

  • GA-62
  • FACILITY
  • ISOSPIN-MIXING CORRECTIONS
  • NUCLEI
  • TRIUMF
  • LIVES
  • DECAY
  • ISAC

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