Paul trapping of radioactive 6He+ions and direct observation of their beta-decay

Abstract

We demonstrate that abundant quantities of short-lived beta unstable ions can be trapped in a novel transparent Paul trap and that their decay products can directly be detected in coincidence. Low energy 6He+ (807 ms half-life) ions were extracted from the SPIRAL source at GANIL, then decelerated, cooled and bunched by means of the buffer gas cooling technique. More than 10^8 ions have been stored over a measuring period of six days and about 10^5 decay coincidences between the beta particles and the 6Li^{++} recoiling ions have been recorded. The technique can be extended to other short-lived species, opening new possibilities for trap assisted decay experiments.

4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys.Rev.Lett

References in corpus (3)

• Tests of the standard electroweak model in beta decay
• Nuclear charge radius of ${}^8$He
• Measurement of the Beta-Neutrino Correlation of Sodium-21 using Shakeoff Electrons

Cited by in corpus (16)

• New physics searches in nuclear and neutron $\beta$ decay
• Standard Model tests with trapped radioactive atoms
• Symmetry violations in nuclear and neutron $\beta$ decay
• Beta asymmetry parameter in the decay of 114In
• Precision measurements of the ${}^{60}$Co $\beta$-asymmetry parameter in search for tensor currents in weak interactions
• Precision measurements in nuclear β-decay with LPCTrap
• The TITAN in-trap decay spectroscopy facility at TRIUMF
• Nuclear structure and reaction studies at SPIRAL
• A GEANT4 Monte-Carlo Simulation Code for precision beta spectroscopy
• Precision measurements with LPCTrap at GANIL
• Electron shakeoff following the ?+ decay of trapped 35Ar+ ions
• First detection and energy measurement of recoil ions following beta decay in a Penning trap with the WITCH experiment
• The TRAPSENSOR Facility: an Open-Ring 7-Tesla Penning Trap for Laser-Based Precision Experiments
• Electron shakeoff following the \b{eta}+ decay of 19Ne+ and 35Ar+ trapped ions
• Simulation of ion behavior in an open three-dimensional Paul trap using a power series method
• A Novel Method for Fundamental Interaction Studies with Electrostatic Ion Beam Trap