Speaker
Dr
Szilard Nagy
(MPI-K)
Description
Penning traps provide nowadays highest sensitivity, precision and
accuracy for atomic mass spectrometry [1]. In the combined strong
magnetic field and weak electric field of a Penning trap a charged
particle can be stored and observed for long time thus frequency
comparisons well below ppb can be performed. Different techniques
such as non-destructive detection with single ion sensitivity or
destructive time-of-flight resonance techniques are available to
measure with high resolution the motional frequencies in the trap,
yielding the free space cyclotron frequency which is inversely
proportional to the charged particles mass.
References
1. K. Blaum, Phys. Rep. 425, 1-78 (2006)
2. Sz. Nagy et al., Europhys. Lett. 74, 404?410 (2006)
3 G. Douysset et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 4259 - 4262 (2001)
4. M. Suhonen et al., JINST 2, P06003 (2007)
5. M. Redshaw et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 053003 (2007)
A number of important mass measurements with remarkable precision
have been performed for applications in neutrino physics experiments
studying beta-decay or searching for neutrinoless double-beta-decay
(0nBB) or radiative neutrinoless double electron capture (0n2EC)
processes, where the atomic mass of the initial and final state
nuclei or the mass difference are a much needed input.
The mass measurement principle will be introduced and the different
detection techniques will be compared. The latest advances shall be
summarized, new ideas and upcoming experiments will be presented.
The talk will cover some of the recent highlights such as the
measurement of the 3H-3He mass difference giving the endpoint of the
tritium beta-decay with 1.2 eV precision [2], the 76Ge-76Se Q-value
of 2039.006(50) keV [3,4] and the 136Xe-136Ba Q-value 2457.83(37)
[5].
