Hannover 2016 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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MS: Fachverband Massenspektrometrie

MS 1: Precision Mass Spectrometry and Fundamental Applications I

MS 1.1: Hauptvortrag

Montag, 29. Februar 2016, 11:00–11:30, f128

Towards a nuclear clock: On the direct detection of the Thorium-229 isomer — •Lars von der Wense¹, Benedict Seiferle¹, Mustapha Laatiaoui^2,3, and Peter G. Thirolf¹ — ¹Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 85748 Garching — ²Helmholtz Institut Mainz, 55099 Mainz — ³GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, 64291 Darmstadt

In the whole landscape of atomic nuclei, ²²⁹Th possesses the only known transition which by today could allow for the development of a nuclear frequency standard. The corresponding isomeric state has an energy of just 7.8 eV, which is even accessible by laser and frequency-comb technology. The isomer to ground-state transition, however, could not be directly detected within the past 40 years, despite significant efforts. In the presentation the first time unambiguous direct detection of the isomeric transition is described. This detection will allow for the determination of the decay parameters and in this way pave the way for the development of a nuclear clock.
This work was supported by DFG (Th956/3-1) and by Horizon 2020 grant agreement no 664732 "nuClock".