München 2019 – scientific programme

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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 50: Structure and Dynamics of Nuclei X

HK 50.5: Talk

Thursday, March 21, 2019, 15:15–15:30, HS 16

Laser-assisted nuclear excitation by electron capture — •Pavlo Bilous and Adriana Pálffy — Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Saupfercheckweg 1, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany

Transitions within the low-lying nuclear spectrum can often efficiently couple to the atomic shell [1]. The process of laser-assisted nuclear excitation by electron capture (LANEEC) is an excitation mechanism for low-lying nuclear levels via photoionization of the electronic shell with an X-ray photon with subsequent nuclear excitation by electron capture (NEEC). NEEC is the time-reversed process of internal conversion. The electron can recombine either into a vacancy in an open electronic shell or with a hole created prior to NEEC with another X-ray photon.

On the one hand, LANEEC may allow usage of X-ray free-electron lasers (XFEL) for nuclear excitations at energies which cannot be reached by direct photoexcitation today, for instance, the nuclear state at 29.19 keV of the ²²⁹Th isotope. On the other hand, the LANEEC process could provide especially large enhancement for highly forbidden transitions, such as the excitation of the 76 eV isomer in ²³⁵U proceeding via an electric octupole (E3) channel. In this work we consider the LANEEC process for nuclear excitation in several isotope species and compare the obtained rates to the ones achievable in direct one- or two-photon excitation which do not involve the electronic shell. The obtained results may be useful in the area of X-ray quantum optics with nuclei.

[1] A. Pálffy, Contemporary Phys. 51, 471 (2010).