Towards the total absorption spectroscopy of doubly magic 78Ni*

78Ni is a unique doubly magic nucleus far from beta stability line, the only one decaying with β-delayed neutron emission channel. Its decay properties influence the early r-process nucleosynthesis and the beta decays of exotic nuclei north-east of Z=28 and N=50.

BRIKEN collaboration at RIKEN has operated the world largest beta-delayed neutron detection system with nearly 150 3He tubes, having 87% of 3He neutron detection volume and two Ge clovers contributed from ORNL.  Few versions of the ion implantation-beta decay array have been used inside BRIKEN, from highly pixelated AIDA array to WASABI Si-stack complemented by the YSO scintillator developed at the UTK.  Experiments performed at the BigRIPS including the study of 78Ni were profiting from high intensities of 238U primary beam at 345 MeV/u separator at RIKEN.

The status of data evaluation and further plans to study 78Ni decay with the ORNL’s Modular Total Absorption Spectrometer at the Facility for Rare Isotopes Beams will be presented.