Eur. Phys. J. A (2015) 51: 8
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2015-15008-1

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Half-life and branching ratios for the β decay of ³⁸Ca

¹ Centre d’Études Nucléaires de Bordeaux Gradignan, Université de Bordeaux, 33175, Gradignan Cedex, France
² Grand Accélérateur National d’Ions Lourds, CEA/DSM-CNRS/IN2P3, F-14076, Caen Cedex 05, France
³ Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien, CNRS/IN2P3/Université de Strasbourg, 23 rue du loess, F-67037, Strasbourg cedex 2, France
⁴ Institut de physique nucléaire, CNRS/IN2P3/Université Paris-Sud, 15 rue Georges Clémenceau, F-91406, Orsay, France

^* e-mail: blank@cenbg.in2p3.fr

Received: 1 September 2014
Revised: 30 December 2014
Accepted: 14 January 2015
Published online: 28 January 2015

Abstract

In an experiment at the LISE3 facility of GANIL, we have studied with high precision the $0^{+}\rightarrow 0^{+}$ $ \beta$ decay of ³⁸Ca. The LISE3 facility allowed to produce close to pure samples of the nuclide of interest. We measured the half-life of this nucleus to be 443.63(35)ms, whereas the super-allowed branching ratio was determined to be 77.14(35)%. Both data are in nice agreement with previous high-precision measurements and thus improve the overall precision of the experimental inputs to determine the corrected $F t$ value for this nucleus. We also compare the experimental Gamow-Teller strength distribution with theoretical shell-model predictions. Finally, future opportunities at LISE3 are discussed.