2024/03/17 by Simone Gargiulo, Ivan Madan, Gargiulo, Simone +13
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Molecular Physics #FOS: Physical sciences #Laser-induced spectroscopy and plasma #Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex) #Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2403.11280
openalex publication_date 2024/03/17 · openalex created_date 2024/03/20 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The excitation of the 181mTa isomer in the laser-plasma scenario was claimed to have been observed more than two decades ago. However, the reported experimental findings - and the respective high excitation rate - were later questioned as they could not be reproduced theoretically. The controversy has remained open ever since. In this work, we reinvestigate both theoretically and experimentally the 181mTa nuclear excitation in an optical laser-generated plasma. Experimentally we have found no evidence for such an excitation process as consistently predicted by previous and our theoretical models.