Nuclear Isotope Production by Ordinary Muon Capture Reaction

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the feasibility of producing valuable radioactive isotopes, including medical isotopes like ^{99}Mo and ^{99m}Tc, through ordinary muon capture reactions using a high-intensity muon beam on molybdenum targets.

Contribution

It introduces the MuCIP method for isotope production and evaluates the resulting isotopes using a proton-neutron emission model, showing its potential for scientific and medical applications.

Findings

MuCIP can produce isotopes at rates of 10^{9-10} per second.

Radioactive isotopes like ^{99}Mo and ^{99m}Tc are successfully produced.

The method complements photon and neutron capture isotope production techniques.

Abstract

Muon capture isotope production (MuCIP) using negative ordinary muon capture reactions (OMC) is used to efficiently produce various kinds of nuclear isotopes for both fundamental and applied science studies. The large capture probability of muon into a nucleus, together with the high intensity muon beam, make it possible to produce nuclear isotopes in the order of 10^{9-10} per second depending on the muon beam intensity. Radioactive isotopes (RIs) produced by MuCIP are complementary to those produced by photon and neutron capture reactions and are used for various science and technology applications. MuCIP on ^{Nat}Mo by using the RCNP MuSIC \muon beam is presented to demonstrate the feasibility of MuCIP. Nuclear isotopes produced by MuCIP are evaluated by using a pre-equilibrium (PEQ) and equilibrium (EQ) proton neutron emission model. Radioactive $^{99}$Mo isotopes and the metastable ^{99m}Tc isotopes, which are used extensively in medical science, are produced by MuCIP on ^{Nat}Mo and ^{100}Mo.