Production of neutron-rich nuclei approaching r-process by gamma-induced fission of ²³⁸U at ELI-NP

¹ Extreme Light Infrastructure Nuclear Physics, “Horia Hulubei” National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Str.Reactorului 30, Bucharest Magurele, 077125 Romania
² Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China
³ Graduate University of Science and Technology, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, Hanoi, Vietnam
⁴ Centre of Nuclear Physics, Institute of Physics, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, Hanoi, Vietnam

^* e-mail: bo.mei@eli-np.ro

Published online: 16 May 2018

Abstract

The investigation of neutron-rich exotic nuclei is crucial not only for nuclear physics but also for nuclear astrophysics. Experimentally, only few neutron-rich nuclei near the stability have been studied, however, most neutron-rich nuclei have not been measured due to their small production cross sections as well as short half-lives. At ELI-NP, gamma beams with high intensities will open new opportunities to investigate very neutron-rich fragments produced by photofission of ²³⁸U targets in a gas cell. Based on some simulations, a novel gas cell has been designed to produce, stop and extract ²³⁸U photofission fragments. The extraction time and efficiency of photofission fragments have been optimized by using SIMION simulations. According to these simulations, a high extraction efficiency and a short extraction time can be achieved for ²³⁸U photofission fragments in the gas cell, which will allow one to measure very neutron-rich fragments with short half-lives by using the IGISOL facility proposed at ELI-NP.