BRIKEN

TRIUMF helps provide IAEA with evaluation of beta-delayed neutron emitters

TRIUMF helps provide IAEA with evaluation of beta-delayed neutron emitters In a coordinated research project under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Canadian researchers from TRIUMF and McMaster University have evaluated all existing beta-delayed neutron emitters and provided recommended values for their decay half-lives and neutron-branching ratios. These new recommendations, released as an IAEA report, together with the new data from ongoing experiments, will be integral part of a newly created database. Among a variety of applications, the data will be a key input in astrophysical studies for a better understanding of the heavy element production in explosive stellar events including core-collapse supernovae and binary neutron star mergers. Such a reliable and regularly updated database is essential for a better understanding of these important physical properties, especially for benchmarking theoretical predictions of yet unmeasured nuclei.  

Measurement of the most exotic neutron emitters at BRIKEN

Measurement of the most exotic neutron emitters at BRIKEN: The BRIKEN (Beta-delayed neutron measurements at RIKEN for nuclear structure, astrophysics, and applications) project started in 2016 at the RIKEN Nishina Center in Japan. As reported in the Journal of Instrumentation (2017) the ambitious goal of the collaboration is to design the most efficient neutron detector array for the measurement of the most exotic nuclei that can be produced today. With TRIUMF research collaboration, so far 268 nuclei have been measured, and for 180 of them the neutron branching ratio and for 60 the decay half-life has been measured for the first time. The neutron-branching ratio of the doubly-magic isotope nickel-78 has been measured for the first time, and will help to pinpoint theoretical predictions of neutron-magic nuclei.