corner
corner
APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 97 » Issue 8
< Previous Article | Next Article >

Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 082501 (2006) [4 pages]

Discovery of 109Xe and 105Te: Superallowed α Decay near Doubly Magic 100Sn

Download: PDF (280 kB) Buy this article Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

S. N. Liddick1, R. Grzywacz2,3, C. Mazzocchi2, R. D. Page4, K. P. Rykaczewski3, J. C. Batchelder1, C. R. Bingham2,3, I. G. Darby4, G. Drafta2, C. Goodin5, C. J. Gross3, J. H. Hamilton5, A. A. Hecht6, J. K. Hwang5, S. Ilyushkin7, D. T. Joss4, A. Korgul2,5,8,9, W. Królas9,10, K. Lagergren9, K. Li5, M. N. Tantawy2, J. Thomson4, and J. A. Winger1,7,9
1UNIRIB, Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA
2Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA
3Physics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA
4Department of Physics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZE, United Kingdom
5Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37235, USA
6Department of Chemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
7Department of Physics and Astronomy, Mississippi State, Mississippi 39762, USA
8Institute of Experimental Physics, Warsaw University, Warszawa, PL 00-681, Poland
9Joint Institute for Heavy-Ion Research, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA
10Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, PL 31-342 Kraków, Poland

Received 16 May 2006; revised 23 June 2006; published 21 August 2006

Two new α emitters 109Xe and 105Te were identified through the observation of the 109Xe→105Te→101Sn α-decay chain. The 109Xe nuclei were produced in the fusion-evaporation reaction 54Fe(58Ni,3n)109Xe and studied using the Recoil Mass Spectrometer at the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility. Two transitions at Eα=4062±7  keV and Eα=3918±9  keV were interpreted as the l=2 and l=0 transitions from the 7/2+ ground state in 109Xe (T1/2=13±2  ms) to the 5/2+ ground state and a 7/2+ excited state, located at 150±13  keV in 105Te. The observation of the subsequent decay of 105Te marks the discovery of the lightest known α-decaying nucleus. The measured transition energy Eα=4703±5  keV and half-life T1/2=620±70  ns were used to determine the reduced α-decay width δ2. The ratio δ105Te2/δ213Po2 of ∼3 indicates a superallowed character of the α emission from 105Te.

© 2006 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.082501
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.082501
PACS:
23.60.+e, 21.10.Dr, 21.10.Pc, 27.60.+j
 
< Previous Article | Next Article >