Trial for the long neutron counter TETRA using 96,97Rb radioactive sources

Abstract

The TETRA long neutron counter is operated at ALTO ISOL facility behind the PARRNe mass separator. TETRA has been proven to be a unique instrument for measurements of β-decay properties of short-lived neutron-rich nuclei having applications for the nuclear structure and/or astrophysical r-process calculations. A proper calibration of TETRA can allow validation of the experimental procedure used for determination of β-delayed one-neutron emission probabilities (P1n). It requires the use of a well-known β-neutron decaying radioactive source which can be only produced and measured on-line due to its short half-life. Thus, the present paper reports on measurements of P1n and T1/2 of 96,97Rb nuclei using TETRA . The results obtained are in a good agreement with the values available in the literature. This proves that the developed techniques can be applied to unknown P1n and T1/2 of neutron-rich species.