München 2019 – scientific programme

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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 54: Poster

HK 54.40: Poster

Thursday, March 21, 2019, 16:30–19:00, Foyer Theresanium

Towards a nuclear clock: Neutralization of ^229(m)Th ions in carbon foils — •Ines Amersdorffer, Benedict Seiferle, Lars von der Wense, and Peter G. Thirolf — LMU Munich, Garching, Germany.

It has been proposed that a nuclear clock could potentially outperform today’s most precise atomic clocks, using a nuclear transition instead of an atomic shell transition. ²²⁹Th possesses an isomeric state (^229mTh) with an extraordinary low energy which makes it the only candidate for a nuclear clock. However, precise knowledge of the nuclear transition energy is required. For a measurement of this energy via the internal conversion decay which only occurs in neutral ^229mTh, thorium ions are neutralized by charge exchange in a carbon foil. In the presented measurements, the particles exiting the carbon foil are analyzed. The results can be used to perform a background-free measurement of the nuclear transition energy.

This work was supported by DFG Grant No. Th956/3-2, by the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement 664732 "nuClock".