Alpha-decay half-life of 253Es in metallic Fe at temperatures between 4 K and 50 mK

Severijns, Natalis; Golovko, VV; Belyaev, AA; Erzinkyan, AL; Eversheim, PD; Filimonov, VT; Gurevich, GM; Herzog, P; Kraev, IS; Lukhanin, AA; Noga, VI; Parfenova, VP; Phalet, T; Rusakov, AV; Toporov, Yu G; Tramm, C; Vyachin, VN; Wauters, Frederik; Zakoucky, D; Zotov, E

Alpha-decay half-life of 253Es in metallic Fe at temperatures between 4 K and 50 mK

Author:

Severijns, Natalis

Golovko, VV ; Belyaev, AA ; Erzinkyan, AL ; Eversheim, PD ; Filimonov, VT ; Gurevich, GM ; Herzog, P ; Kraev, IS ; Lukhanin, AA ; Noga, VI ; Parfenova, VP ; Phalet, T ; Rusakov, AV ; Toporov, Yu G ; Tramm, C ; Vyachin, VN ; Wauters, Frederik ; Zakoucky, D ; Zotov, E

Keywords:

halflife, electron screening, 253Es, low temperatures, radioactive nuclei, 0202 Atomic, Molecular, Nuclear, Particle and Plasma Physics, Nuclear & Particles Physics

Abstract:

It has been claimed recently that half-lives of radioactive nuclei embedded in metals would be significantly affected by electron screening provided by the metal. The effectwould further be strengthened at low temperatures. We have determined the half-life-of 253Es nuclei embedded in iron at temperatures between 4 K and 50 mK. Our results agree with the room temperature literature value within about 2% and show no dependence on temperature over a range of almost two orders of magnitude.