Study for a 229Th Storage Ring at BNL

ORAL

Abstract

229Th has a unique low lying energy state of just 8.4 eV, which has generated great interest as a nuclear clock. Recent studies have measured precisely this energy level in 229Th embedded in crystals such as CaF2. At BNL, fully ionized free 229Th could be accelerated to ~1.3 GeV/nucleon in the Booster and ~11 GeV/nucleon at the AGS. Both these energies allow for the excitation of the 8.4 eV isomer state of 229Th using readily available lasers from 225 nm to optical wavelength. Using such a Th229 storage ring, a laser to excite the ions, and photon detectors around the ring, it's possible that precision measurements of the free 229Th excitation energy, the excitation line shape, and half-life can be measured. We present a study evaluating how well these measurements could be achieved in these properties of 229Th using the existing accelerators at BNL.

*This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics under contract number DE-SC0012704 and Reaching a New Energy Sciences Workforce (NP-RENEW).

Presenters

  • Mickey G Chiu

    • Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL)

Authors

  • Mickey G Chiu

    • Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL)