Acta Physica Polonica B

Vol. 34, No. 4, April 2003, page 2363

Discovery of the Two-Proton Decay of 45Fe

M. Pfuetzner, B. Blank, J. Giovinazzo, E. Badura, C. Bingham, C. Borcea, B.A. Brown, M. Chartier, S. Czajkowski, F. de Oliveira Santos, A. Fleury, H. Geissel, L.V. Grigorenko, R. Grzywacz, M. Hellstroem, Z. Janas, J. Kurcewicz, A.S. Lalleman, M. Lewitowicz, M.J. Lopez Jimenez, V. Maslov, C. Mazzocchi, I. Mukha, G. Muenzenberg, C. Plettner, M.S. Pravikoff, E. Roeckl, K.P. Rykaczewski, K. Schmidt, R.S. Simon, M. Stanoiu, J.-C. Thomas

In experiments performed at the GSI Fragment Separator and at the GANIL SISSI-LISE3 facility the decay of 45Fe has been investigated. Implantation events of 45Fe ions, stopped in silicon telescopes, were correlated with radioactive decay events. The decay energy spectra exhibit a peak of an average energy of (1.14 \pm 0.05) MeV. This observation, together with the non-observation of coincident \gamma or \beta events, represent clear evidence for the two-proton ground state decay of 45Fe. The average half-life of 45Fe, deduced from both experiments, is T1/2 = 3.8 +2.0-0.8 ms.

PACS numbers: 21.10.Tg, 23.50.+z, 29.30.Ep

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