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Reply to: Possible overestimation of isomer depletion due to contamination

Nature volume 594, pages E3–E4 (2021)Cite this article

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The Original Article was published on 02 June 2021

replying to S. Guo et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03333-5 (2021)

We appreciate the interest of Guo et al., the points that they raise, and the opportunity that we have to provide additional details that are not included in ref. 1. This allows us to strengthen our experimental case1 while, in parallel, recent developments are improving our theoretical understanding of nuclear excitation by electron capture (NEEC), such as the exploration of a substantial increase in predicted NEEC probability when considering capture by an ion in an excited state2 or the impact of the momentum distribution of target electrons3. In the accompanying Comment4, Guo et al. focus on whether potential background contributions were underestimated in our analysis. As discussed below, these concerns are mostly unwarranted; aside from a small systematic uncertainty that could possibly slightly reduce our reported NEEC excitation probability1 of Pexc = 0.010(3), our original conclusions still stand.

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Fig. 1: Spectra double-gated on 1,478 and 123 keV (red), 203 keV (blue) or 268 keV (cyan).
Fig. 2: Spectra used for background subtraction for the double gate on 2,475 keV and 1,478 keV.

Data availability

Data analysed for the original publication were re-examined for this Reply; no new data were generated.

References

  1. Chiara, C. J. et al. Isomer depletion as experimental evidence of nuclear excitation by electron capture. Nature 554, 216–218 (2018).

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  2. Gargiulo, S., Madan, I., & Carbone, F. Nuclear excitation by electron capture in excited ions. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.05718 (2021).

  3. Rzadkiewicz, J., Polasik, M., Słabkowska, K., Syrocki, Ł., Carroll, J. J. & Chiara C. J. Novel approach to 93mMo isomer depletion: nuclear excitation by electron capture in resonant transfer process. Phys. Rev. Lett. (in the press).

  4. Guo, S., Fang, Y., Zhou, X. & Petrache, C. M. Possible overestimation of isomer depletion due to contamination. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03333-5 (2021).

  5. Fukuchi, T. et al. High-spin isomer in 93Mo. Eur. Phys. J. A 24, 249–257 (2005).

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics, under contract numbers DE-AC02-06CH11357 and DE-AC02-98CH10886 and grant numbers DE-FG02-97ER41041 and DE-FG02-97ER41033; the National Science Foundation under grant number PHY-1203100; and the Polish National Science Centre under grant number 2017/25/B/ST2/00901. This research used resources of Argonne National Laboratory’s ATLAS facility, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility, and of the Heavy Ion Accelerator Facility at the ANU.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. DEVCOM/Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, MD, USA

    C. J. Chiara & J. J. Carroll

  2. Physics Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, USA

    M. P. Carpenter, J. P. Greene & D. Seweryniak

  3. Department of Physics, US Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, USA

    D. J. Hartley

  4. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    R. V. F. Janssens

  5. Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    R. V. F. Janssens

  6. Department of Nuclear Physics, Research School of Physics, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    G. J. Lane

  7. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, USA

    J. C. Marsh

  8. National Nuclear Security Administration, Washington, DC, USA

    D. A. Matters

  9. Faculty of Chemistry, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Toruń, Poland

    M. Polasik

  10. National Centre for Nuclear Research, Otwock, Poland

    J. Rzadkiewicz

  11. National Nuclear Data Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA

    S. Zhu & A. B. Hayes

  12. Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy

    S. Bottoni

  13. Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sez. Milano, Milan, Italy

    S. Bottoni

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  1. C. J. Chiara
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Contributions

All co-authors were members of the collaboration that collected, analysed and interpreted the data reported in the original Letter, which have been further examined here. C.J.C. composed the response, with input from J.J.C. and G.J.L. All co-authors had the opportunity to review the response.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to C. J. Chiara.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Chiara, C.J., Carroll, J.J., Carpenter, M.P. et al. Reply to: Possible overestimation of isomer depletion due to contamination. Nature 594, E3–E4 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03334-4

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