Astrophysics with Radioactive Isotopes

Radioactive molecules for astrophysics

Not scheduled

20m

Oral Presentation

Speaker

Shane Wilkins (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Description

Radioactive isotopes play an increasingly important role in our understanding of the Universe [Die18]. The benefits of observing them are two-fold; the presence of a given radioactive isotope itself provides a signature to probe the stellar nucleosynthesis processes that created it, and its radioactive half-life acts as a sensitive tracer of the timescale of the dynamics involved in its journey all the way from its parent star to the interstellar medium [Die21].

Until now, the distribution of radioactive isotopes across the galaxy has been investigated through detection of characteristic γ-rays resulting from their decay or through measured abundances of isotopes present in meteorites [Die21]. In an exceptional case, the rotational transitions of the radioactive molecule $^{26}$AlF were scaled from laboratory data of stable $^{27}$AlF leading to its identification near CK Vul [Kam18].

This contribution presents data from an experimental campaign performing high-resolution rotationally resolved spectroscopy of radium monofluoride [Gar20, Udr21], a promising candidate for fundamental symmetry violation studies [Ber19], produced in miniscule quantities at the ISOLDE radioactive beam facility at CERN.

The demonstrated unprecedented combination of ultra-high sensitivity and high resolution of the employed technique paves the way for an experimental program dedicated to the study of radioactive molecules containing astrophysical isotopes of interest for which an outlook will be given. This will enable their unambiguous detection in space and allow their presence to be associated with single stellar objects owing to the exceptional resolution of millimetre-wave observatories in operation today.

[Ber19] WIREs Comput. Mol. Sci. 9 e1396 (2019)
[Die18] Astrophysics, Space Sci. 453 (2018)
[Die21] Astrophysics, Space Sci. 366 104 (2021)
[Gar20] Nature 581 396–400 (2020)
[Kam18] Nat. Ast. 2 778–783 (2018)
[Udr21] Phys. Rev. Lett. 127 033001 (2021)

Authors: S. G. Wilkins$^{1}$ M. Athanasakis-Kaklamanakis$^{2,3}$, M. Au$^{4,5}$, I. Belošević$^{1,6}$, R. Berger$^{7}$, M. L. Bissell$^{8}$, A. Borschevsky$^{9}$, A. A. Breier$^{10}$, A. J. Brinson$^{1}$, K. Chrysalidis$^{4}$, T. E. Cocolios$^{3}$, R. P. de Groote$^{3}$, A. Dorne$^{3}$, K. T. Flanagan$^{8,11}$, S. Franchoo$^{12}$, R. F. Garcia Ruiz$^{1}$, K. Gaul$^{7}$, S. Geldhof$^{3}$, T. F. Giesen$^{10}$, D. Hanstorp$^{13}$, R. Heinke$^{4}$, T. A. Isaev$^{14}$, H. Kakioka$^{1}$, S. Kujanpää$^{15}$, L. Lalanne$^{3}$, J. Karthein$^{1}$, A. Kiuberis$^{9}$, Á. Koszorús$^{2}$, G. Neyens$^{3}$, B. McGuire$^{1}$, S. Moroch$^{1}$, M. Nichols$^{13}$, L. F. Pašteka$^{16}$, J. Reilly$^{8}$, S. Rothe$^{4}$, F. Pastrana Cruz$^{1}$, H. A. Perrett$^{8}$, S. M. Udrescu$^{1}$, B. van den Borne$^{3}$, A. R. Vernon$^{1}$, Q. Wang$^{17}$, J. Wessolek$^{8,18}$, X. F. Yang$^{19}$, C. Zülch$^{7}$.
$^{1}$Laboratory for Nuclear Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA, $^{2}$EP Department, CERN, CH-1211 Geneva 23, $^{3}$KU Leuven, Instituut voor Kern-en Stralingsfysica, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium, $^{4}$Systems Department, CERN, CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland, $^{5}$Institut für Kernchemie, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, D-55099 Mainz, Germany, $^{6}$TRIUMF, Vancouver V6T 2A3, Canada, $^{7}$Fachbereich Chemie, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Hans-Meerwein-Straße 4, 35032 Marburg, Germany, $^{8}$School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom, $^{9}$Van Swinderen Institute for Particle Physics and Gravity, University of Groningen, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands, $^{10}$Laboratory for Astrophysics, Institute of Physics, University of Kassel, 34132 Kassel, Germany, $^{11}$Photon Science Institute Alan Turing Building, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PY, United Kingdom, $^{12}$Laboratoire Irène Joliot-Curie, F-91405 Orsay, France, $^{13}$Department of Physics, Gothenburg University, Gothenburg, Sweden, $^{14}$Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, Gatchina, Leningrad District 188300, Russia, $^{15}$Department of Physics, University of Jyvaskyla, PB 35(YFL) FIN-40351 Jyvaskyla, Finland, $^{16}$Department of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University, Mlynská dolina, 84215, Bratislava, Slovakia, $^{17}$School of Nuclear Science and Technology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 73000, China, $^{18}$M Squared, 1 Kelvin Campus, West of Scotland Science Park, Glasgow G20 0SP, UK, $^{19}$School of Physics and State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, Peking University, 100971 Beijing, China.