beta-delayed fission and alpha decay of At-196

A nuclear-decay spectroscopy study of the neutron-deficient isotope 196At is reported where an isotopically pure beam was produced using the selective Resonance Ionization Laser Ion Source and On-Line Isotope Mass Separator (CERN). The fine-structure α decay of 196At allowed the low-energy excited states in the daughter nucleus 192Bi to be investigated. A β-delayed fission study of 196At was also performed. A mixture of symmetric and asymmetric fission-fragment mass distributions of the daughter isotope 196Po (populated by β decay of 196At) was deduced based on the measured fission-fragment energies. A βDF probability PβDF(196At) = 9(1) × 10−5 was determined. ispartof: Physical Review C vol:94 issue:3 status: published