Search for the decay of nature’s rarest isotope 180mTa
180mTa is the rarest naturally occurring quasistable isotope and the longest lived metastable state which is known. Its possible decay via the β− or the electron capture channel has never been observed. This article presents a search for the decay of 180mTa with an ultralow background Sandwich HPGe γ spectrometry setup in the HADES underground laboratory. No signal is observed and improved lower partial half-life limits are set with a Bayesian analysis to 5.8 × 1016 yr for the β− channel and 2.0 × 1017 yr for the electron capture channel
(90 % credibility). The total half-life of 180mTa is longer than 4.5 × 1016 yr. This is more than a factor of two improvement compared to previous searches.
LEHNERT B.;
HULT Mikael;
LUTTER Guillaume;
ZUBER K.;
2017-04-26
AMER PHYSICAL SOC
JRC106514
2469-9985,
https://journals.aps.org/prc/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevC.95.044306,
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC106514,
10.1103/PhysRevC.95.044306,
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