The importance of fundamental measurements
At the Radioactive Isotope Beam Facility (RIBF) of the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator Science in Wako, a research team has measured the time it takes for 38 extremely rare isotopes to decay by half. This is the first study of half-lives for 18 of the isotopes. The data provide a long-awaited test of theoretical predictions of the rate at which these isotopes decay, and will help nuclear physicists to understand a fundamental source of many of the atomic elements and their isotopes. The results also mark an early achievement for the RIBF, which came online in 2007, and currently has the highest production yield of heavy radioactive isotopes in the world, according to team member Shunji Nishimura from the Radioactive Isotope Physics Laboratory, headed by Hiroyoshi Sakurai.