Points of Publication
- Lutecium-176 β-decays to hafnium-176 with a half-life of approximately 40 billion years, so it can be used as a nuclear cosmochronometer; however, the reliability was low because the exact half-life was unclear.
- The half-life was measured by a new method that overcame the weakness of the conventional measurement methods, and the most accurate value was measured.
- In the future, it is expected that the lutecium-176 chronometer is used for dating of the formation of meteorites and terrestrial rocks, and the last supernova explosion that occurred before the solar system formation.
Summary
A research team consisting of Dr. Takehito Hayakawa and Dr. Toshiyuki Shizuma at National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (Dr. Shigeo Koyasu, President) and Prof. Tsuyoshi Iizuka, at Graduate School of Science, the University of Tokyo, has used a new experimental method to measure the most accurate half-life of the long-lived radioactive isotope lutecium-176 (176Lu), one of the nuclear cosmochronometer, and solved the problem that previously measured the half-lives differ significantly.
By measuring the amounts of lutecium-176 and hafnium-176 in a sample such as a meteorite, it is possible to determine the age of the formation of the meteorite or asteroid being the parent body of the meteorite (Figure 1).
In the future, it is expected that the presently obtained half-life will be used to investigate the formation ages of various celestial bodies in the solar system and the formation age of the crusts of celestial bodies. It is also expected to measure the age of the supernova explosion that affected the formation of the solar system.
Figure 1: Conceptual diagram of the space clock. From the ratio of the amount of parent nuclei and daughter nuclei, the time since the parent nucleus was trapped in a meteorite (the time since the meteorite was formed) is measured.