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SYMD: Symposium SMuK Dissertationspreis 2018

SYMD 1: SMuK Dissertationspreis 2018

SYMD 1.4: Invited Talk

Monday, March 19, 2018, 15:15–15:40, Z6 - HS 0.004

Milestone toward a nuclear clock: On the direct detection of ^229mTh — •Lars von der Wense, Benedict Seiferle, and Peter G. Thirolf — Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 85748 Garching, Germany

The measurement of time has always been an important tool in science and society. ^229mTh offers the potential for the development of an ultra-precise nuclear clock that may outperform existing atomic clock technology. However, despite 40 years of past research, no direct decay detection of this nuclear state was achieved. Experiments are described that have led to the first direct detection of the ground-state decay of ^229mTh [1] and a first characterization of the isomeric decay parameters [2]. These measurements pave the way for the development of a nuclear clock. Based on this direct detection, a new nuclear laser excitation scheme was proposed [3] and a first laser spectroscopic characterization of ^229mTh was performed [4].
[1] L. v.d.Wense et al., Nature 533, 47-51 (2016).
[2] B. Seiferle et al., PRL 118, 042501 (2017).
[3] L. v.d.Wense et al., PRL 119, 132503 (2017).
[4] J. Thielking et al., Nature, in print, arxiv:1709.05325 [nucl-ex].
Supported by DFG grant TH956/3-2 and Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 664732 "nuClock".