Spectroscopy of metastable and isomeric nuclei with the use of multibeam multi-petawatt lasers

Abstract: The prospects for the use of high-power laser systems for the tasks in nuclear photonics are discussed. By the example of the structure of the nuclear levels of the krypton isotope ⁸³Kr, that has two isomeric states with energies of 9.4 and 41.6 keV, the possibility of their indirect excitation via high-lying short-lived levels with the use of high-energy laser plasma radiation is described. It is shown that the photoexcitation cross section of the 9.4 keV level by gamma quanta with the exponential energy distribution increases by more than 100 times with the increase in the distribution temperature from 50 keV to 1 MeV and the constant amplitude. Estimates of the yield of photoexcitation reactions of ⁸³Kr isomeric levels by plasma radiation generated by a petawatt-level laser system for several temperatures of the electron beam and thickness of the bremsstrahlung converter of gamma radiation are being made.

Keywords: petawatt laser system, laser plasma, gamma radiation, krypton isotope, isomeric states.