Showing papers by "Lutz Schweikhard published in 2014"

A phase-imaging technique for cyclotron-frequency measurements

Abstract: A novel approach to mass measurements at the 10−9 level for short-lived nuclides with half-lives well below one second is presented. It is based on the projection of the radial ion motion in a Penning trap onto a position-sensitive detector. Compared with the presently employed time-of-flight ion-cyclotron-resonance technique, the novel approach is 25-times faster and provides a 40-fold gain in resolving power. Moreover, it offers a substantially higher sensitivity since just two ions are sufficient to determine the ion’s cyclotron frequency. Systematic effects specific to the technique that can change the measured cyclotron frequency are considered in detail. It is shown that the main factors that limit the maximal accuracy and resolving power of the technique are collisions of the stored ions with residual gas in the trap, the temporal instability of the trapping voltage, the anharmonicities of the trapping potential and the uncertainty introduced by the conversion of the cyclotron to magnetron motion.

The cryogenic gas stopping cell of SHIPTRAP

Abstract: The overall efficiency of the Penning-trap mass spectrometer SHIPTRAP at GSI Darmstadt, employed for high-precision mass measurements of exotic nuclei in the mass region above fermium, is presently mostly limited by the stopping and extraction of fusion-evaporation products in the SHIPTRAP gas cell. To overcome this limitation a second-generation gas cell with increased stopping volume was designed. In addition, its operation at cryogenic temperatures leads to a higher gas density at a given pressure and an improved cleanliness of the helium buffer gas. Here, the results of experiments with a 219 Rn recoil ion source are presented. An extraction efficiency of 74(3)% was obtained, a significant increase compared to the extraction efficiency of 30% of the present gas stopping cell operated at room temperature. The optimization of electric fields and other operating parameters at room as well as cryogenic temperatures is described in detail. Furthermore, the extraction time of 219 Rn ions was determined for several operating parameters.

Ion bunch stacking in a Penning trap after purification in an electrostatic mirror trap

Abstract: The success of many measurements in analytical mass spectrometry as well as in precision mass determinations for atomic and nuclear physics is handicapped when the ion sources deliver “contaminations”, i.e., unwanted ions of masses similar to those of the ions of interest. In particular, in ion-trapping devices, large amounts of contaminant ions result in significant systematic errors—if the measurements are possible at all. We present a solution for such cases: The ions from a quasi-continuous source are bunched in a linear radio-frequency-quadrupole ion trap, separated by a multi-reflection time-of-flight section followed by a Bradbury–Nielsen gate, and then captured in a Penning trap. Buffer-gas cooling is used to damp the ion motion in the latter, which allows a repeated opening of the Penning trap for a stacking of mass-selected ion bunches. Proof-of-principle demonstrations have been performed with the ISOLTRAP setup at ISOLDE/CERN, both with 133Cs+ ions from an off-line ion source and by application to an on-line beam of 179Lu+ ions contaminated with 163Dy16O+ ions. In addition, an optimization of the experimental procedure is given, in particular for the number of ion bunches captured as a function of the ions’ lifetimes and the parameters of the experiment .

Competition between pairing correlations and deformation from the odd-even mass staggering of francium and radium isotopes

Abstract: The masses of $^{222,224,226\text{--}233}\mathrm{Fr}$ and $^{233,234}\mathrm{Ra}$ have been determined with the Penning-trap mass spectrometer ISOLTRAP at the ISOLDE facility at CERN, including the previously unknown mass and half-life of $^{233}\mathrm{Fr}$. We study the evolution of the odd-even staggering of binding energies along the francium and radium isotopic chains and of its lowest-order estimator, ${\ensuremath{\Delta}}^{3}(N)$. An enhancement of the staggering of ${\ensuremath{\Delta}}^{3}(N)$ is observed towards neutron number $N=146$, which points to contributions beyond pairing correlations. These contributions are investigated in the Hartree-Fock and Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov approaches, emphasizing the connections to the single-particle level density and nuclear deformation.

Progress toward positron-electron pair plasma experiments

Abstract: Electron-positron plasmas have been of theoretical interest for decades, due to the unique plasma physics that arises from all charged particles having precisely identical mass. It is only recently, though, that developments in non-neutral plasma physics (both in linear and toroidal geometries) and in the flux of sources for cold positrons have brought the goal of conducting electron-positron pair plasma experiments within reach. The APEX/PAX collaboration is working on a number of projects in parallel toward that goal; this paper provides an overview of recent, current, and upcoming activities.