Atomic physics studies at the Gamma Factory at CERN

Abstract

The Gamma Factory initiative proposes to develop novel research tools at CERN by producing, accelerating and storing highly relativistic, partially stripped ion beams in the SPS and LHC storage rings. By exciting the electronic degrees of freedom of the stored ions with lasers, high-energy narrow-band photon beams will be produced by properly collimating the secondary radiation that is peaked in the direction of ions' propagation. Their intensities, up to $10^{17}$ photons per second, will be several orders of magnitude higher than those of the presently operating light sources in the particularly interesting $\gamma$--ray energy domain reaching up to 400 MeV. This article reviews opportunities that may be afforded by utilizing the primary beams for spectroscopy of partially stripped ions circulating in the storage ring, as well as the atomic-physics opportunities afforded by the use of the secondary high-energy photon beams. The Gamma Factory will enable ground breaking experiments in spectroscopy and novel ways of testing fundamental symmetries of nature.

15 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (10)

• GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral
• Relativistic recoil, electron-correlation, and QED effects on the 2p_j-2s transition energies in Li-like ions
• Test of Time Dilation Using Stored Li+ Ions as Clocks at Relativistic Speed
• Non-perturbative calculation of the two-loop Lamb shift in Li-like ions
• QED calculation of the 2p3/2-2p1/2 transition energy in five-electron ion of argon
• Backscattering of Laser Radiation on Ultra-Relativistic Electrons in Transverse Magnetic Field: Evidence of Photon Interference in a MeV Scale
• Dispelling the curse of the neutron skin in atomic parity violation
• Neutron rich matter in heaven and on Earth
• Modification of multipole transitions by twisted light
• A limit on the anisotropy of the one-way maximum attainable speed of the electron

Cited by in corpus (16)

• Promises and challenges of high-energy vortex states collisions
• Expanding Nuclear Physics Horizons with the Gamma Factory
• Large and massive neutron stars: Implications for the sound speed in dense QCD
• Shifting physics of vortex particles to higher energies via quantum entanglement
• Vortex $\gamma$ photon generation via spin-to-orbital angular momentum transfer in nonlinear Compton scattering
• Generation of vortex particles via generalized measurements
• Resonant scattering of plane-wave and twisted photons at the Gamma Factory
• Nuclear coherent population transfer to the ${}^{229m}$Th isomer using x-ray pulses
• Excitation and probing of low-energy nuclear states at high-energy storage rings
• Resonance photoproduction of pionic atoms at the Gamma Factory
• Gamma Factory Searches for Extremely Weakly-Interacting Particles
• Local Lorentz invariance tests for photons and hadrons at the Gamma Factory
• Optical excitation of ultra-relativistic partially stripped ions
• Alternative method of generating gamma rays with orbital angular momentum
• Generation of Twisted Gamma-Rays via Two-Photon Transition
• Bounds on charged-lepton flavor violations via resonant scattering