Isomer beam elastic scattering: ^26mAl(p, p) for astrophysics

¹ School of Physics & Astronomy, the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
² Center for Nuclear Study, the University of Tokyo, Wako, Japan
³ Department of Physics, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, Korea
⁴ Department of Physics & Astronomy, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
⁵ RIKEN Nishina Center, Wako, Japan
⁶ Department of Physics, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
⁷ Department of Physics, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea
⁸ Institute of Particle and Nuclear Studies, KEK, Japan
⁹ Wako Nuclear Science Center, KEK, Wako, Japan
¹⁰ Department of Physics, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

^* e-mail: daid.kahl@ed.ac.uk

Published online: 30 December 2017

Abstract

The advent of radioactive ground-state beams some three decades ago ultimately sparked a revolution in our understanding of nuclear physics. However, studies with radioactive isomer beams are sparse and have often required sophisticated apparatuses coupled with the technologies of ground-state beams due to typical mass differences on the order of hundreds of keV and vastly different lifetimes for isomers. We present an application of a isomeric beam of ^26mAl to one of the most famous observables in nuclear astrophysics: galactic ²⁶Al. The characteristic decay of ²⁶Al in the Galaxy was the first such specific radioactivity to be observed originating from outside the Earth some four decades ago. We present a newly-developed, novel technique to probe the structure of low-spin states in ²⁷Si. Using the Center for Nuclear Study low-energy radioisotope beam separator (CRIB), we report on the measurement of ^26mAl proton resonant elastic scattering conducted with a thick target in inverse kinematics. The preliminary results of this on-going study are presented.