Laser Assisted Nuclear Decay Spectroscopy: A New Method for Studying Neutron-Deficient Francium Isotopes

By Kara Marie Lynch

Book Overview

This work details an application of collinear resonance ionization spectroscopy for the separation of short-lived isomeric states and their subsequent study with decay spectroscopy. It reports the successful construction of a novel decay spectroscopy apparatus that can operate at pressures below 1 x 10 -9 mbar. The method is demonstrated by separating the nuclear ground and isomeric states of 204Fr and performing alpha-decay spectroscopy. An equivalent mass spectrometer would require 4.6 million times as much resolution to achieve the same result. This work unambiguously confirms the existence of a second isomeric state in 204Fr. The author also demonstrates the effectiveness of this method for laser spectroscopy and identification of hyperfine-structure components with energy tagging. This method was successfully used in 202Fr to identify ground and isomeric states. The measurement of 202Fr reported in this thesis demonstrates a factor of 100 improvement in sensitivity compared to state-of-the-art fluorescence techniques. The work reported in this thesis won the author the IOP Nuclear Physics Group Early Career Prize.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 3319361384
• ISBN13: 9783319361383
• Release Date: September 2016
• Publisher: Springer
• Length: 131 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.1" x 9.2"