Radiative Capture on Nuclear Isomers: Direct Measurement of the ^{26m}Al(p,γ)^{27}Si Reaction

G Lotay; A Lennarz; C Ruiz; C Akers; A A Chen; G Christian; D Connolly; B Davids; T Davinson; J Fallis; D A Hutcheon; P Machule; L Martin; D J Mountford; A St J Murphy

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.042701

Radiative Capture on Nuclear Isomers: Direct Measurement of the ^{26m}Al(p,γ)^{27}Si Reaction

Phys Rev Lett. 2022 Jan 28;128(4):042701. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.042701.

Authors

G Lotay¹, A Lennarz^{2

3}, C Ruiz^{2

4}, C Akers^{2

5}, A A Chen³, G Christian², D Connolly², B Davids^{2

6}, T Davinson⁷, J Fallis², D A Hutcheon², P Machule², L Martin², D J Mountford⁷, A St J Murphy⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, United Kingdom.
² TRIUMF, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 2A3, Canada.
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M1, Canada.
⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2, Canada.
⁵ Department of Physics, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, United Kingdom.
⁶ Department of Physics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada.
⁷ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JZ, United Kingdom.

PMID: 35148128
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.042701

Abstract

We present the first direct measurement of an astrophysical reaction using a radioactive beam of isomeric nuclei. In particular, we have measured the strength of the key 447-keV resonance in the ^{26m}Al(p,γ)^{27}Si reaction to be 432_{-226}^{+146} meV and find that this resonance dominates the thermally averaged reaction rate for temperatures between 0.3 and 2.5 GK. This work represents a critical development in resolving one of the longest standing issues in nuclear astrophysics research, relating to the measurement of proton capture reactions on excited quantum levels, and offers unique insight into the destruction of isomeric ^{26}Al in astrophysical plasmas.