Speaker
Fritz Bosch
(GSI Darmstadt, Germany)
Description
Ion storage rings and ion traps have provided for the first time the opportunity to
investigate beta decay of highly charged atoms, i.e. with only a few or even none
bound electrons. The impact of this new field of research for nuclear astrophysics
and, in particular, for s-process nucleosynthesis in hot stellar plasmas is
obvious. In this talk an overview is given on the activities in this field during
the last decade at the ion storage-cooler ring ESR of GSI, with the emphasis on
bound-state beta decay and its astrophysical implications. Moreover, first results
of a new technique, single-ion decay spectroscopy, will be presented and analyzed,
i.e. the direct observation of two-body beta decays (bound-state beta decay and
orbital electron capture) of single, stored and cooled ions at well-defined atomic
charge states.
Author
Fritz Bosch
(GSI Darmstadt, Germany)
