Nuclear Excitation by Electron Capture in Excited Ions

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that considering excited ions significantly enhances the predicted nuclear excitation cross section via electron capture, revealing new channels and increasing resonance strength over three orders of magnitude.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach by including excited ionic states, which greatly amplifies the electron capture resonance strength compared to previous ground-state-only models.

Findings

Resonance strength increases by over three orders of magnitude when excited states are considered.

New electron capture channels emerge from excited ionic states.

The approach improves understanding of nuclear excitation mechanisms in ions.

Abstract

A nuclear excitation following the capture of an electron in an empty orbital has been recently observed for the first time. So far, the evaluation of the cross section of the process has been carried out widely using the assumption that the ion is in its electronic ground state prior to the capture. We show that by lifting this restriction new capture channels emerge resulting in a boost of more than three orders of magnitude to the electron capture resonance strength.