β -delayed fission of isomers in Bi 188

• β-delayed fission (βDF) decay of a low-spin (ls) and a high-spin (hs) isomer in Bi188 was studied at the ISOLDE facility at CERN. Isomer-selective laser ionization and time gating were employed to investigate each isomer separately and their βDF partial half-lives were determined: T1/2p,βDF(188Bihs)=5.6(8)×103 s and T1/2p,βDF(188Bils)=1.7(6)×103 s. This work is the first βDF study of two states in one isotope and allows the spin dependence of low-energy fission to be explored. The fission fragment mass distribution of a daughter nuclide Pb188, following the β decay of the high-spin isomer, was deduced and indicates a mixture of symmetric and asymmetric fission modes. Experimental results were compared with self-consistent mean-field calculations based on the finite-range Gogny D1M interaction. To reproduce the measured T1/2p,βDF(188Bihs), the calculated fission barrier of Pb188 had to be reduced by ≈30%. After this reduction, the measured T1/2p,βDF(188Bils) was in agreement with calculations for a few possible configurations for Bils188. Theoretical βDF probabilities for these configurations were found to be lower by a factor of 4-9 than the βDF probability of Bihs188. The fission fragment mass distribution of Pb188 was compared to the scission-point model SPY and the calculations based on the finite-range liquid-drop model. The first observation of βDF for Bi190 is also reported. © 2020 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Subatomär fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Subatomic Physics (hsv//eng)

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