Study of (178m2)hafnium(gamma, gamma')(178)hafnium reaction by nuclear spectroscopy methods

Controlled release of the energy stored in nuclear isomers is very attractive for producing powerful sources of induced gamma-ray radiation. High-energy nuclear isomers can have very long lifetimes of the order of years and thus they can serve as good energy storage media. For instance, 1 mg of the 178m2Hf isomer stores about 1 MJ as excitation energy of the isomeric state. One of the most promising ways to release the energy stored in the isomeric state involves photonuclear reactions in the energy range of soft X-rays. Photons with energies lower than 20 keV can excite the 178m2Hf isomeric state to an intermediate level from which gamma transitions cascade to lower levels with a decay rate much faster than the rate of spontaneous decay of the isomeric state. In this work, the photoexcitation of 178m2Hf by (γ, γ ′) reactions at low energies was studied by nuclear spectroscopy methods. The experimental arrangement was based on the coincident detection of gamma photons with four large HPGe detectors. A bremsstrahlung X-ray generator was used as excitation source, which covered a continuous energy-range from 0 to 60 keV. The interpretation of the experimental results shows that the decay of the 178m2Hf isomer can be triggered by X-rays at a power on the order of only mW/cm 2. The analysis of the gamma-gamma coincidence data has revealed that during X-ray irradiations, a line of 129.5 keV was found in coincidence with the 213.4 keV ground state band (GSB) transition. The 129.5 keV line has not been previously observed and is not a known transition of the spontaneous decay of 178m2Hf. The 129.5 keV gamma transition must be a member of a sequence of gamma transitions that bypasses most of the normal decay cascade populated by spontaneous decay. This result leads to a deeper understanding of the (γ, γ ′) reactions at low energies. These photonuclear reactions are of special interest because of the importance of possible practical applications. The studies of the decay of nuclear isomers induced by X-rays should be seen in a larger perspective of the development of new controlled sources of incoherent gamma-radiation and they could also mean a significant progress for the development of a gamma-ray laser.