Speaker
Description
At the VITO beamline at ISOLDE [1], we use optical pumping with tunable lasers to polarise nuclear spins of different short-lived nuclei. We then use the resulting anisotropic emission of beta radiation in a variety of fields, from nuclear structure, via material science, all the way to biology.
Combining optical pumping with beta-decay detected nuclear resonance (beta-NMR) in liquid samples has allowed us to narrow the linewidth of NMR resonances by two orders of magnitude. Thanks to this achievement we have pushed to ppm levels the accuracy of magnetic moments of short-lived isotopes [1]. We now use this approach to study the distribution of nuclear magnetisation throught measurements of the hyperfine anomaly [2]. Recently, we have also started a programme in decay spectroscopy of laser-polarized beams, in which we study angular correlations between emitted beta particles, gamma-radiation, and neutrons. The aim is to determine spins and parities of excited states in neutron-rich nuclei, especially bet-delayed neutron emitters relevant for the r process nucleosynthesis.
This contribution will present the VITO experimental setup, recent studies with neutron rich potassium isotopes 2,3], and the upcoming measurements of the magnetic moment of $^{11}$Be [4] and of solid-state battery materials with $^8$Li [5].
- R. Harding et al., Phys. Rev. X 10 (2020) 041061. M Jankowski et al, to be submitted
- M.L. Bissell et al, in preparation
- M. Piersa-Silkowska et al., CERN-INTC-2023-026 / INTC-P-662, and M. Piersa-Silkowska et al., in preparation
- M.L. Bissell et al, CERN-INTC-2023-014 / INTC-P-655
- G. Rees et al., CERN-INTC-2023-078 / INTC-I-267
