$\\alpha$-decay properties of $^{200,202}$FR

Abstract

Background: The neutron-deficient lead region provides a range of nuclear phenomena, including isomerism at low energies. This phenomenon can be studied by α decay because the degree of hindrance of α decay provides information on the change in nuclear structure of connected states. Purpose: The aim of this work was to investigate the α-decay properties of $^{200,202}$FR and daughter products. Method: Neutron-deficient francium nuclei are produced at ISOLDE-CERN bombarding a UCx target with 1.4\xa0GeV protons. Surface ionization and mass-separation techniques were employed to provide a pure radioactive ion beam at a radiation-detection setup. Results: Due to the very high statistics and the high beam purity, improved decay data for $^{202}$FR and its daughters were obtained. In particular, this data set allowed us to identify many fine-structure α lines with a relative reduced α-decay width up to five orders of magnitude lower as the strongest ground-to-ground state or isomeric-to-isomeric state α-decay transition. In addition, several half-life values were extracted with similar or better precision as compared with the literature. Conclusions: The observation of crossover transitions positioned the isomeric high-spin level of $^{198}$At at an excitation energy of 265(3)\xa0keV. Half-life values of 4.47(5)\xa0s and 1.28(10)\xa0s were extracted for the ground state and isomeric state of $^{198}$At and 52(3)\xa0ms for the ground-state decay of $^{200}$FR. Furthermore, α-decay schemes for Fr202 and its daughter $^{198}$At could be constructed.