Development towards 53Mn Accelerator Mass Spectrometry capabilities at the University of Notre Dame

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) with 53Mn has geological applications as a chronometer for exposure and burial times for discontinuously deposited sediments. It has also been used to search for evidence of recent supernovae events, and proposed as a proxy to monitor the variation in the galactic cosmic ray spectrum over time. The current sensitivity limit amongst active facilities is 53Mn/55Mn = 3 x 10-13 while a sensitivity of 53Mn/55Mn = 1 x 10-13 is necessary to fully exploit 53Mn's capabilities. At the University of Notre Dame's Nuclear Science Laboratory (NSL), a 10 MV tandem accelerator and a Browne-Buechner Spectrograph operated as a gas-filled magnet were used to separate 53Mn from 53Cr. Samples covering ranges of 53Mn/55Mn = 10-10 - 10-8 were measured for the first time at the NSL using various settings resulting in a background level of 53Mn/55Mn = 6.2(3) x 10-11. Analysis of the results, descriptions of experimental settings, and further explorations will be presented in this paper.

Automated summary

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) with 53Mn is used as a chronometer in geology to determine exposure and burial times of discontinuously deposited sediments. It is also employed to search for evidence of recent supernovae events and monitor the variation in the galactic cosmic ray spectrum. This study conducted measurements on samples with 53Mn/55Mn ratios ranging from 10-10 to 10-8 using a 10 MV tandem accelerator and a gas-filled magnet spectrograph.