Erlangen 2018 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 46: Precision Measurements and Metrology (Optical Clocks) (joint session Q/A)
A 46.5: Vortrag
Freitag, 9. März 2018, 11:30–11:45, K 2.013
Laser-induced electronic bridge for characterization of the 229mTh isomer transition with a tunable optical laser — •Pavlo Bilous1, Ekkehard Peik2, and Adriana Pálffy1 — 1Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Heidelberg, Germany — 2Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Braunschweig, Germany
The isotope 229Th is unique among the other nuclei due to its long-lived first excited state 229mTh at the energy of 7.8 eV lying in the optical range. Its decay to the ground state has very narrow width and high stability to external fields, rendering 229Th a candidate for a first nuclear clock at unprecedentedly high relative accuracy of 10−19. Precise knowledge of the transition parameters such as energy and γ-decay rate is however needed for its implementation.
Due to the low energy of the state 229mTh the nuclear transition can be strongly coupled to the atomic shell processes with considerable enhancement of the nuclear decay rate. An example of such processes is laser-induced electronic bridge (LIEB) [1]. The excited nuclear state decays by transfering its energy to the outer electrons. The electronic shell is then promoted to a high-lying bound state by absorption of a laser photon and a virtual photon coming from the nucleus. Here we investigate theoretically LIEB as a means for precise determination of the 229mTh energy and γ-decay rate. Depending on the actual value of the nuclear transition energy, the enhancement factor compared to the radiative nuclear decay can achieve up to 108 [1].
[1] P. V, Bilous, E. Peik and A. Pálffy, New J. Phys. in press (2017)