Recent advances in β-decay spectroscopy at CARIBU

¹ Department of Nuclear Physics, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601 Australia
² Department of Physics and Applied Physics, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, Massachusetts 01854, USA
³ Physics Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA
⁴ Department of Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
⁵ Department of Physics, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH, United Kingdom
⁶ Physics Department, The United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland 21402, USA
⁷ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USA
⁸ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, USA
⁹ Nuclear Engineering Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA
¹⁰ National Nuclear Data Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, USA
¹¹ Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA

^a e-mail: aj.mitchell@anu.edu.au
^b Present address: GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, D-64291 Darmstadt, Germany

Published online: 5 September 2016

Abstract

β-decay spectroscopy of nuclei far from stability can provide powerful insight into a broad variety of topics in nuclear science, ranging from exotic nuclear structure phenomena, stellar nucleosynthesis processes, and applied topics such as quantifying “decay heat” discrepancies for advanced nuclear fuel cycles. Neutronrich nuclei approaching the drip-line are difficult to access experimentally, leaving many key examples largely under studied. The CARIBU radioactive beam facility at Argonne National Laboratory exploits spontaneous fission of ²⁵²Cf in production of such beams. The X-Array and SATURN decay station have been commissioned to perform detailed decay spectroscopy of low-energy CARIBU beams. An extended science campaign was started during 2015; with projects investigating nuclear shape changes, collective octupole vibrations, β-delayed neutron emission, and decay-scheme properties which could explain the reactor antineutrino puzzle. In this article we review the current status of the setup, update on the first results and recent hardware upgrades, and look forward to future possibilities.