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Isotope shift and hyperfine structure measurements on silver, actinium and astatine by in-source resonant ionization laser spectroscopy

Resonant ionization laser ion sources are applied worldwide to increase purity and intensity of rare isotopes at radioactive ion beam facilities. Especially for heavy elements the laser wavelengths required for efficient resonant laser ionization are not only element dependent, but also vary to small degrees from isotope to isotope. Since the first operation of an actinide target at ISAC-TRIUMF in 2008, the demand for neutron-rich isotopes far away from stability has steadily increased. Those isotopes often have very low production rates so that often only a few ions per second are released. In order to study isotope shifts and hyperfine structure of silver, actinium and astatine, in-source resonant ionization spectroscopy in combination with radioactive decay detection has been applied. Despite the Doppler limited resolution, it has the advantage that it is ultra-sensitive and the atomic spectrum for the nuclear ground and isomeric states can be investigated individually. An isobaric separation has been demonstrated for 115-119Ag, where the hyperfine structure of one state showed a splitting of 22 GHz to 38 GHz while for the other state only a single peak spectrum can be resolved. For astatine and actinium, the main interest is to measure and study the optical isotope shift, which is for the first excitation step for neutron-rich isotopes in the order of IS_FES≈±3.7GHz/u for both elements, as these observables give insight into nuclear moments and shape. In addition, also the isotope shift of the second excitation step for astatine has been measured to IS_SES,At≈-1.7GHz/u. Laser spectroscopy on astatine has mainly been performed on the neutron-deficient isotopes 199,205At due to high count rates and low isobaric contamination. With the results obtained it is possible to extrapolate the required wavelength for ionizing and delivering the isotopes 221-225At which are of interest to e.g. electric dipole moment studies. / October 2017

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:MANITOBA/oai:mspace.lib.umanitoba.ca:1993/32217
Date13 April 2017
CreatorsTeigelhöfer, Andrea
ContributorsLassen, Jens (Physics and Astronomy) Gwinner, Gerald (Physics and Astronomy), Mammei, Juliette (Physics and Astronomy) Southern, Byron (Physics and Astronomy) van Wijngaarden, Jennifer (Chemistry) Mantica, Paul (Chemistry, Michigan State University)
Source SetsUniversity of Manitoba Canada
Detected LanguageEnglish

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