Modified nuclear level lifetime in hot dense plasmas

Abstract

The lifetime variations of a nuclear level in a plasma environment at thermodynamic equilibrium are discussed. Nuclear excitation and decay processes, including radiative processes, nuclear excitation by electron capture and internal conversion, nuclear excitation by electron transition and bound internal conversion are taken into account. The model is able to deal with any number of nuclear level having an influence on the considered level lifetime. Lifetime variations of several orders of magnitude are observed for various levels on different nuclei. The importance of NEET process on the examples of the $^{201}\mathrm{Hg}$ (1.565 keV) and the $^{93}\mathrm{Mo}$ (2424.89 keV) isomer levels is especially pointed out.