Discovery of new isotopes in the fragmentation of and insights into their production
Phys. Rev. C 112, 034604 – Published 4 September, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/573p-7fjp
Abstract
The production cross sections of neutron-rich nuclei for elements just above were measured at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). Four previously unobserved isotopes (, and ) were produced, separated, and identified for the first time using the Advanced Rare Isotope Separator (ARIS). One event was found to be consistent with . The new isotopes were created through the interaction of an beam with a carbon target at an energy of and a primary beam current of . The event-by-event particle identification of the mass number (), atomic number (), and ionic charge state () for the reaction products was achieved by combining measurements of energy loss, time of flight, magnetic rigidity, and total kinetic energy. This successful search for new isotopes, conducted at the beginning of FRIB's third year of operation, highlights the facility's discovery potential, which will continue to grow as the beam current increases. The production cross sections were analyzed in the context of the newly developed systematics that provides trends in neutron-rich regions and increased sensitivity to nuclear binding, an important nuclear structure observable. The new systematics addresses gaps in -based methods commonly used to interpret the production cross sections of light neutron-rich elements, and provides an efficient empirical approach to describe cross-section trends across isotopic chains. Good agreement with the measured data was obtained when the systematics and abrasion-ablation calculations were performed using the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (HFB-22) mass table.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Corrections
17 October, 2025
Correction: A value in the fourth sentence of the abstract was incorrect and has been fixed.