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April 19, 2018
A step closer to the nuclear clock
Oscillations in the atomic nucleus of thorium-229 to be used as pulse generator for future nuclear clocks
Precise time measurements play a vital role in our daily life.
They allow reliable navigation and accurate experimenting and provide a basis for world-wide synchronized exchange of data.
A team of researchers of
PTB Braunschweig,
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU),
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU),
the
Helmholtz Institute Mainz (HIM), and
GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt
now reports on a decisive step toward the potential development of a
nuclear clock,
which bears the potential to significantly outperform the best current atomic clocks.
The only
known excited state of an atomic nucleus that is located at a suitably low excitation energy
to be accessible by optical techniques, as they are in use in current atomic clocks,
exists in thorium-229.
Fundamental properties of thorium-229 in this state have now been determined,
the researchers report in the current issue of the journal
Nature.
More info ...
Johannes Thielking, PTB scientist, with the laser setup used for investigating the thorium-229 nucleus.
Credit: PTB Braunschweig