Laser Resonance Chromatography of ${}^{229}$Th${}^{3+}$ in He: an ab initio investigation

Abstract

We propose a laser resonance chromatography (LRC) experiment on ${}^{229}$Th${}^{3+}$, with the goal of detecting the ion's electronic ground $5f$ ${}^2$F${}_{5/2}$ state and metastable $7s$ ${}^2$S${}_{1/2}$ state by means of their ion mobilities. To this end, we first model the ion-neutral interaction potentials for the two electronic states with a relativistic Fock space coupled cluster method and complete basis-set extrapolation scheme. The interaction potentials are used to simulate the state-specific reduced ion mobilities in terms of the operating temperature and the external electric field. The ion mobilities differ by more than 7% at 300 K and moderate field strengths; thus, separation of the ${}^{229}$Th${}^{3+}$ metastable state lies within the reach of LRC experiments targeting optical probing and monitoring of the nuclear clock transition in this isotope.

9 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (11)

• Extreme ultraviolet frequency comb metrology
• Lifetime measurement of the ${}^{229}$Th nuclear isomer
• Recent progress in laser spectroscopy of the actinides
• Excitation energies, polarizabilities, multipole transition rates, and lifetimes in Th IV
• Laser Resonance Chromatography of Superheavy Elements
• Effects of electrons on nuclear clock transition frequency in ${}^{229}$Th ions
• Mobility of the Singly-Charged Lanthanide and Actinide Cations: Trends and Perspectives
• The extraction of 229Th3+ from a buffer-gas stopping cell
• State-specific ion mobilities of Lr^+ (Z = 103) in helium
• Reexamination of the ground state Born-Oppenheimer Yb${}_2$ potential
• Shift of nuclear clock transition frequency in ${}^{229}$Th ions due to hyperfine interaction