Page 154 - Neutrons for Sciences and Society
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Neutrons for Science
PN1, a nuclear physics spectrometer
The fission fragment separator PN1 (also called LOHENGRIN) separates atomic nuclei produced in nuclear fission according to their mass, charge and kinetic energy. This serves for an improved understanding of the nuclear fission process and to provide accurate
nuclear data for applications (e.g. Portfolio 12: PN1, a nuclear physics calculations of reactor decay heat). spectrometer (2015)
Nuclear fission produces also short-
lived exotic nuclei that play an important role in nucleosynthesis, i.e. the creation of heavy elements in the universe. Decay spectroscopy of nuclei enables e.g. to infer their shape (spherical or deformed) and excitations (vibrations and rotations) which in turn may influence the nucleosynthesis process.
The photo shows a model of a deformed nucleus (inflated in size by 13 orders of magnitude) inside the Ge detector array installed at the focal plane of LOHENGRIN.
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