Prospects for measuring the 229Th isomer energy using a metallic magnetic microcalorimeter

The Thorium 229 isotope features a nuclear isomer state with an extremely low energy. The currently most accepted energy value, 7.8 +/- 0.5 eV, was obtained from an indirect measurement using a NASA x-ray microcalorimeter with an instrumental resolution 26 eV. We study, how state-of-the-art magnetic metallic microcalorimeters with an energy resolution down to a few eV can be used to measure the isomer energy. In particular, resolving the 29.18 keV doublet in the gamma-spectrum following the alpha-decay of Uranium 233, corresponding to the decay into the ground and isomer state, allows to measure the isomer transition energy without additional theoretical input parameters, and increase the energy accuracy. We study the possibility of resolving the 29.18 keV line as a doublet and the dependence of the attainable precision of the energy measurement on the signal and background count rates and the instrumental resolution. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved