Erlangen 2022 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 17: Collisions, scattering and correlation phenomena

A 17.1: Hauptvortrag

Mittwoch, 16. März 2022, 14:00–14:30, A-H1

Isomer depletion via nuclear excitation by electron capture with electron vortex beams — •Yuanbin Wu¹, Christoph H. Keitel¹, and Adriana Pálffy^{1, 2} — ¹Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Saupfercheckweg 1, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany — ²Department of Physics, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, D-91058 Erlangen, Germany

Long-lived excited states of atomic nuclei, known as nuclear isomers, can store a large amount of energy over long periods of time, with a very high energy-to-mass ratio. Dynamical external control of nuclear state population has proven so far very challenging, despite ground-breaking incentives for a clean and efficient energy storage solution. Here, we describe a protocol to achieve the external control of the isomeric nuclear decay via the process of nuclear excitation by electron capture [1] with electron vortex beams whose wavefunction has been especially designed and reshaped on demand [2]. This can lead to the controlled release of the stored nuclear energy. We show theoretically that the use of tailored electron vortex beams can increase the depletion of isomers by 2 to 6 orders of magnitude compared to so far considered depletion mechanisms and provides a handle for manipulating the capture mechanism [2].

[1] Y. Wu, C. H. Keitel, A. Pálffy, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 212501 (2019).

[2] Y. Wu, S. Gargiulo, F. Carbone, C. H. Keitel, A. Pálffy, arXiv: 2107.12448.