2023/08/06 by Fan, Wenru, Qi, Wei, Zhang, Jingli +11
#FOS: Physical sciences #Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex) #Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) #Plasma Physics (physics.plasm-ph) #Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2308.02994
Nuclear isomers play a key role in the creation of the elements in the universe and have a number of fascinating potential applications related to the controlled release of nuclear energy on demand. Particularly, 93mMo isomer is a good candidate for studying the depletion of nuclear isomer via nuclear excitation by electron capture. For such purposes, efficient approach for 93mMo production needs to be explored. In the present work, we demonstrate experimentally an efficient production of 93mMo through 93Nb(p, n) reaction induced by intense laser pulse. When a ps-duration, 100-J laser pulse is employed, the 93mMo isomer at 2425 keV (21/2+, T1/2 = 6.85 h) are generated with a high yield of 1.8×106 particles/shot. The resulting peak efficiency is expected to be 1017 particles/s, which is at least five orders of magnitudes higher than using classical proton accelerator. The effects of production and destruction of 93mMo on the controversial astrophysical p-isotope 92Mo are studied. It is found that the 93Nb(p, n)-93mMo reaction is an important production path for 93mMo seed nucleus, and the influence of 93mMo-92Mo reaction flow on 92Mo production cannot be ignored. In addition, we propose to directly measure the astrophysical rate of (p, n) reaction using laser-induced proton beam since the latter one fits the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution well. We conclude that laser-induced proton beam opens a new path to produce nuclear isomers with high peak efficiency towards the understanding of p-nuclei nucleosythesis.