Eur. Phys. J. A (2013) 49: 70
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2013-13070-3

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Electron screening in nickel

¹ Jožef Stefan Institute, Jamova cesta 39, Ljubljana, Slovenia
² Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Jadranska ulica 19, Ljubljana, Slovenia
³ Cosylab d.d, Teslova ulica 30, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Received: 4 April 2013
Accepted: 23 May 2013
Published online: 13 June 2013

Abstract

In order to investigate the interplay between nuclei and their surroundings, we studied proton-induced nuclear reactions over an energy range from 0.86 to 3.08MeV for different environments: Ni metal and NiO insulator. The measurements were based on the observation of the yields of ^{59, 61, 63, 64, 65}Cu and ^{58, 60, 62}Ni de-excitation -rays. Shifts in the resonance energy for the metallic target relative to the insulator one were not observed. Electron screening potential of keV was deduced for ⁶⁴Ni ⁶⁴Cu reaction, while keV was deduced for ⁵⁸Ni ⁵⁹Cu and ⁶⁰Ni ⁶¹Cu reactions. The observed electron screening potentials for (p,n) and (p,) reactions are the same within error bars, but the comparison with previous measurements raises the question of the independence of the electron screening from the reaction exit channel.