Eur. Phys. J. A (2005) 25: 639-642
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjad/i2005-06-069-1

ENAM 2004

The half-life of the doubly-magic r-process nucleus ⁷⁸Ni

¹ National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, Michigan State University, 48824, East Lansing, MI, USA
² Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, 48824, East Lansing, MI, USA
³ Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, USA
⁴ Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame, 46556-5670, Notre Dame, IN, USA
⁵ Institut für Kernchemie, Universität Mainz, Fritz-Strassmann Weg 2, D-55128, Mainz, Germany
⁶ Department of Chemistry, Michigan State University, 48824, East Lansing, MI, USA
⁷ Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, MS P8-50, P.O. Box 999, 99352, Richland, WA, USA
⁸ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, 20742, College Park, MD, USA

^* e-mail: schatz@nscl.msu.edu

Received: 28 February 2005
Accepted: 28 February 2005
Published online: 12 May 2005

Abstract

Despite a lot of experimental and theoretical progress the question of the r-process site and the origin of the heavy elements in nature remains one of the biggest open questions in nuclear astrophysics. We report first results from experiments with rare isotope beams of r-process nuclei at Michigan State University’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. This includes a first measurement of the half-life of the doubly-magic waiting point nucleus ⁷⁸Ni, which serves as a major bottle-neck for the synthesis of heavy elements in many r-process models.