Search for Electron Capture in $^{176}$Lu with LYSO scintillator
| Title: | Search for Electron Capture in $^{176}$Lu with LYSO scintillator |
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| Authors: | Ghezzer, Luigi Ernesto, Nozzoli, Francesco, Nicolaidis, Riccardo, De Santis, Cristian, Iuppa, Roberto, Zuccon, Paolo |
| Source: | Phys.Rev.C 107 (2023) 4, 045504 |
| Publication Year: | 2022 |
| Collection: | High Energy Physics - Experiment Nuclear Experiment |
| Subject Terms: | Nuclear Experiment, High Energy Physics - Experiment |
| More Details: | The nuclide $^{176}$Lu is one of the few naturally occurring isotopes that are potentially unstable with respect to electron capture (EC). Although experimental evidence for $^{176}$Lu EC decay is still missing, this isotope is instead well known to $\beta^-$ decay into $^{176}$Hf with an half-life of about 38 Gyr. The precise investigation of all $^{176}$Lu possible decay modes is interesting because the Lu/Hf ratio is adopted as an isotopic clock. Previous searches for the $^{176}$Lu EC decay were performed by using a passive Lutetium source coupled with an HP-Ge spectrometer. Our approach uses a LYSO crystal both as Lutetium source and as an active detector. Scintillation light from the LYSO crystal is acquired in coincidence with the signals from the HP-Ge detector, this allows a powerful suppression of the background sourcing from the well known $\beta^-$ decay branch. This coincidence approach led to an improvement on the $^{176}$Lu EC branching ratio limits by a factor 3 to 30, depending on the considered EC channel. Comment: 9 pages, 14 figures |
| Document Type: | Working Paper |
| DOI: | 10.1103/PhysRevC.107.045504 |
| Access URL: | http://arxiv.org/abs/2211.15203 |
| Accession Number: | edsarx.2211.15203 |
| Database: | arXiv |
| DOI: | 10.1103/PhysRevC.107.045504 |
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