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Register a new userPaul trapping of radioactive 6He+ions and direct observation of their beta-decay
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Authors
X. Flechard
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We demonstrate that abundant quantities of short-lived beta unstable ions can be trapped in a novel transparent Paul trap and that their decay products can directly be detected in coincidence. Low energy 6He+ (807 ms half-life) ions were extracted from the SPIRAL source at GANIL, then decelerated, cooled and bunched by means of the buffer gas cooling technique. More than 10^8 ions have been stored over a measuring period of six days and about 10^5 decay coincidences between the beta particles and the 6Li^{++} recoiling ions have been recorded. The technique can be extended to other short-lived species, opening new possibilities for trap assisted decay experiments.
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Trapped radioactive atoms present exciting opportunities for the study of fundamental interactions and symmetries. For example, detecting beta decay in a trap can probe the minute experimental signal that originates from possible tensor or scalar terms in the weak interaction. Such scalar or tensor terms affect, e.g., the angular correlation between a neutrino and an electron in the beta-decay process, thus probing new physics of beyond-the-standard-model nature. The present system focuses on a novel use of an innovative ion trapping device, the Electrostatic Ion Beam Trap. Such a trap has not been previously considered for Fundamental Interaction studies and exhibits potentially very significant advantages over other schemes. These advantages include improved injection efficiency of the radionuclide under study, an extended field-free region, ion-beam kinematics for better efficiency and ease-of operation and the potential for a much larger solid angle for the electron and recoiling atom counters. The beta-decay of trapped 6He is discussed and preliminary Monte-Carlo (MC) simulation and error-analysis considerations are presented.
Several modes of electroweak radioactive decay require an interaction between the nucleus and bound electrons within the constituent atom. Thus, the probabilities of the respective decays are not only influenced by the structure of the initial and final states in the nucleus, but can also depend strongly on the atomic charge. Conditions suitable for the partial or complete ionization of these rare isotopes occur naturally in hot, dense astrophysical environments, but can also be artificially generated in the laboratory to selectively block certain radioactive decay modes. Direct experimental studies on such scenarios are extremely difficult due to the laboratory conditions required to generate and store radioactive ions at high charge states. A new electron-beam ion trap (EBIT) decay setup with the TITAN experiment at TRIUMF has successfully demonstrated such techniques for performing spectroscopy on the radioactive decay of highly charged ions.
Background: The Doppler broadening of $gamma$-ray peaks due to nuclear recoil from $beta$-delayed nucleon emission can be used to measure the energies of the nucleons. This method has never been tested using $beta$-delayed proton emission or applied to a recoil heavier than $A=10$. Purpose: To test and apply this Doppler broadening method using $gamma$-ray peaks from the $^{26}$P($beta pgamma$)$^{25}$Al decay sequence. Methods: A fast beam of $^{26}$P was implanted into a planar Ge detector, which was used as a $^{26}$P $beta$-decay trigger. The SeGA array of high-purity Ge detectors was used to detect $gamma$ rays from the $^{26}$P($beta pgamma$)$^{25}$Al decay sequence. Results: Radiative Doppler broadening in $beta$-delayed proton-$gamma$ decay was observed for the first time. The Doppler broadening analysis method was verified using the 1613 keV $gamma$-ray line for which the proton energies were previously known. The 1776 keV $gamma$ ray de-exciting the 2720 keV $^{25}$Al level was observed in $^{26}$P($beta pgamma$)$^{25}$Al decay for the first time and used to determine that the center-of-mass energy of the proton emission feeding the 2720-keV level is 5.1 $pm$ 1.0 (stat.) $pm$ 0.6 (syst.) MeV, corresponding to a $^{26}$Si excitation energy of 13.3 $pm$ 1.0 (stat.) $pm$ 0.6 (syst.) MeV for the proton-emitting level. Conclusions: The Doppler broadening method has been demonstrated to provide practical measurements of the energies for $beta$-delayed nucleon emissions populating excited states of nuclear recoils at least as heavy as $A=25$.
We present a microscopic calculation of the 6He beta-decay into the ground state of 6Li. To this end, we use chiral perturbation theory at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order to describe the nuclear weak-currents. The nuclear wave functions are derived from the J-matrix inverse scattering nucleon-nucleon potential (JISP), and the Schroedinger equation is solved using the hyperspherical-harmonics expansion. Our calculation brings the theoretical decay-rate within 3% of the measured one. This success is attributed to the use of chiral-perturbation-theory based mesonic currents, whose contribution is qualitatively different compared to standard nuclear physics approach, where the use of meson exchange currents worsens the comparison to experiment. The inherent inconsistency in the use of the JISP potential together with chiral-perturbation-theory based is argued not to affect this conclusion, though a more detailed investigation is called for. We conclude that any suppression of the axial constant in nuclear matter is included in this description of the weak interaction in the nucleus.
The cyclotron frequency ratio of $^{187}mathrm{Os}^{29+}$ to $^{187}mathrm{Re}^{29+}$ ions was measured with the Penning-trap mass spectrometer PENTATRAP. The achieved result of $R=1.000:000:013:882(5)$ is to date the most precise such measurement performed on ions. Furthermore, the total binding-energy difference of the 29 missing electrons in Re and Os was calculated by relativistic multiconfiguration methods, yielding the value of $Delta E = 53.5(10)$ eV. Finally, using the achieved results, the mass difference between neutral $^{187}$Re and $^{187}$Os, i.e., the $Q$ value of the $beta^-$ decay of $^{187}$Re, is determined to be 2470.9(13) eV.
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