Study of thermal neutron capture in potassium

Abstract

The 39K(n,y)40K reaction has been studied using a Ge(Li) and a Ge(Li)-Ge(Li) spectrometer. A total of 252 gamma-ray transitions has been observed and a gamma-gamma coincidence matrix involving 62 transitions has been established. A decay scheme based on the experimental results is deduced for 202 of the observed gamma-ray transitions. Spins and parities of some excited states have been estimated from the deduced branching ratios. The neutron separation energies of the 40K and 42K nuclei have been determined as 7800.5 + 0.2 and 7535.2 _+ 1.5 keV respectively.