Adriana’s theory group just published two new papers, both of which might have a significant impact on experiments building on the Th-229 isomer. The first paper is a study on a new optomechanical system, which interfaces optical fields and X-rays via an optical cavity. In short, one mirror of an optical cavity is formed by […]
We have built up a considerable backlog in out presentation of papers related to research on the thorium isomer. Here, we highlight a number of theoretical papers that could support experiments searching for the isomer and trying to measure its energy. “Magnetic hyperfine structure of the ground-state doublet in highly charged ions 229 Th 89+, […]
Frontier research builds on solid funding, and the LMU groups just secured financial support for their upcoming research work. Within the framework of a DFG grant, an electron spectrometer to measure the energy of IC electrons will be constructed. The money is sufficient to buy all the required equipment and LMU researcher Benedict Seiferle will […]
The nuClock yearly meeting 2017 will take place in Heidelberg from September 18 to 20 and will be hosted by Adriana’s group. We will start on Monday after lunch (such that no-one needs to travel on Sunday already) and conclude on Wednesday afternoon. As with previous meetings, we are aiming for a large number of […]
We just learned about a new Thorium experiment, the first one in the Southern hemisphere! At CSIRO/Griffith University, researchers are currently transforming an already existing Yb ion trap to a Th ion trap. What a brilliant idea! The experiment is based in Brisbane (that’s in the South East corner of Queensland), so if you happen […]
The nuClock team will organize an international conference on all topics related to the Thorium-229 isomer. Today, we are proud to announce the date and venue! The conference will take place on July 9 to 12, 2018 in the unique old physics center in Bad Honnef, Germany. The location: The small town of Bad Honnef […]
Yesterday, Lars von der Wense of LMU Munich successfully passed his PhD exam, and he did it with summa cum laude distinction! Lars is the first PhD student funded by the nuClock project to finish his thesis. Congratulations! Lars has been supervised by LMU group leader Peter G. Thirolf. The board of examiners also included […]
The currently most accepted value of the isomer energy is 7.8(5) eV, obtained by the so-called “Beck et al. measurement”. In this experiment, researchers from Lawrence Livermore employed a NASA microcalorimeter for a high-resolution gamma measurement of the U-233 decay. Using a clever differencing scheme, they indirectly inferred the energy of the isomer. The final […]
A series of recent breakthrough experiments at LMU Munich was able to confirm theoretical and experimental predictions on various properties of the Th-229 isomer. Specifically, the LMU team was able to show (1) that the isomer exists at all, (2) that its energy is somewhere between 6.3 and 18 eV, (3) that the isomer lifetime […]
The preferred de-excitation pathway of low-energy excited nuclear states is internal conversion (IC). Instead of de-exciting to the ground state via emission of a gamma, they couple to electronic states of similar energy. Their excitation energy is transferred to the electron, which typically leaves the atom and carries away the excess energy. Such a process […]