Eur. Phys. J. A (2009) 42: 401-406
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2009-10814-6

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

In-trap decay of ⁶¹Mn and Coulomb excitation of ⁶¹Mn/⁶¹Fe

¹ PH department, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
² Physik Department E12, Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany
³ Instituut voor Kern- en Stralingsfysica, K.U. Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
⁴ Lund University, Lund, Sweden
⁵ AB department, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
⁶ Institut für Kernphysik, Universität Köln, Köln, Germany
⁷ Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Padova and INFN, Padova, Italy

^* e-mail: jarno.van.de.walle@cern.ch

Received: 19 December 2008
Revised: 15 April 2009
Accepted: 24 April 2009
Published online: 9 June 2009

Abstract

At ISOL (Isotope Separator On-Line) facilities, which utilize thick primary production targets, beams of neutron-rich iron isotopes are difficult to obtain due to the long extraction time of these isotopes out of the target matrix. At REX-ISOLDE, an exploratory experiment was carried out to investigate the possibility of producing a post-accelerated beam of neutron-rich iron isotopes by the in-trap decay of neutron-rich manganese isotopes, which are available at ISOLDE using the Resonance Ionization Laser Ion Source (RILIS). This production mechanism was tested for the first time at REX-ISOLDE with an intense and short-lived beam of ⁶¹Mn isotopes. In this work, the proof of principle of this method is demonstrated, although the technical details of the trapping process are currently not well understood and are still under investigation. The first physics results on the Coulomb excitation of ⁶¹Mn and ⁶¹Fe are presented and compared to shell model calculations.