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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 15: Poster I
A 15.17: Poster
Tuesday, March 3, 2009, 16:30–19:00, VMP 9 Poster
Laser Spectroscopy of atomic Radium — Alexander Groot, Klaus Jungmann, •Bodhaditya Santra, Lorenz Willmann, and Hans W. Wilschut — KVI, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
The heavy alkaline earth elements radium (Ra) offers a unique sensitivity to a parity and time reversal violating permanent electric dipole moments (EDM). In particular, Ra exhibits the largest known atomic enhancements factors for EDMs. The intrinsic sensitivity arises from the specific atomic and nuclear structure of Ra. All Ra isotopes with nuclear spin I are radioactive. The lifetimes are shorter than 15d. Several Ra isotopes are available at the TRIµP facility at KVI. For the exploitation of the sensitivity Ra atoms have to be collected in a neutral atom trap. The main laser cooling will be done on the strong 1S0-1P1 transition at 482.7nm, similar to the laser cooling and trapping of the chemical homologue barium. Laser spectroscopy of the strong 1S0-1P1 transitions will be presented. The light at this wavelength is provided by frequency doubling of a Ti:sapphire laser in a KNbO3 crystal. Of particular interest is the decay branching of the excited state to the metastable D-states. Such measurements are indispensable input for current atomic structure calculations, which are necessary for the analysis of a EDM measurement using Ra.