A Theoretical Study on the Ground and Low-Energy Magnetic Dipole Characteristics of 239Pu Nucleus

Abstract A microscopic model analysis of the magnetic dipole ( M 1) properties of 239 Pu nucleus, which is a fissile material not only used in nuclear weapons but also used in some nuclear reactors as a source of energy, has been performed. The microscopic formalism used in the study is based on the Quasiparticle Phonon Nuclear Model (QPNM) and includes an axially symmetric Woods-Saxon potential as a mean field, a spin-spin residual interaction as well as the symmetry-restoring forces for the rotational invariance of the Hamiltonian. The investigations have been carried out in two steps. Firstly, the theoretical values of the ground-state magnetic moment and quenched-spin gyromagnetic factors have been determined and it has been found that they show a good agreement with the experimental data. Secondly, the calculations of M 1 transitions from ground- to excited-states have been carried out in the energy range 2-4 MeV. A satisfactorily good agreement is obtained from the comparison of the theoretical results with the experimental one for 2-2.5 MeV.