Advances in Ion Trapping of Radioactive Ions

A special issue of Atoms (ISSN 2218-2004).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2024 | Viewed by 10496

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA
Interests: ion trapping; precision half-life and mass measurements; tests of the weak interaction; astrophysical rapid-neutron capture process studies

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Since the seminal work of Wolgang Paul and Hans G. Dehmelt that warranted them the 1989 Nobel prize in physics, ion traps have become ubiquitous. We find them in biology and medicine to identify protein; in chemistry where they are used to identify peptides and analyze crude oil composition; in quantum computing; as part of some of the most precise atomic clocks; and they are also used to confine antimatter.

Ion traps also found their way in nuclear physics where they are used to confine and manipulate ion beams as well as perform high precision mass measurements. These devices enable research that help us better understand where and how about half of the elements heavier than iron are produced; how the structure of the nucleus change with large neutron-to-proton imbalance; and what are the limits of the Standard Model.

This special issue will include original research papers, review articles, and short communications to provide an overview of the current advances in ion trapping for nuclear physics. These advances can include recent technical developments, new initiatives, and ideas as well as recent scientific results.

Dr. Maxime Brodeur
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • Penning and Paul traps 
  • multi-reflection time-of-flight mass spectrometer 
  • mass spectrometry 
  • radioactive atoms and molecules 
  • tests of the weak interaction 
  • explosive nucleosynthesis

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Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 1189 KiB  
Article
Application of Atomic Spectroscopy of Trapped Radioactive Ions in Nuclear Physics
by Ruben P. de Groote
Atoms 2024, 12(12), 60; https://doi.org/10.3390/atoms12120060 - 21 Nov 2024
Viewed by 228
Abstract
A review is given of precision measurements of hyperfine constants and nuclear g-factors measured with ions confined in ion traps. The nuclear physics observables which can be extracted from these types of measurements are discussed. The feasibility of future nuclear structure studies [...] Read more.
A review is given of precision measurements of hyperfine constants and nuclear g-factors measured with ions confined in ion traps. The nuclear physics observables which can be extracted from these types of measurements are discussed. The feasibility of future nuclear structure studies using precision atomic spectroscopy of trapped radioactive atoms, produced with accelerator-driven approaches, is discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Ion Trapping of Radioactive Ions)
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10 pages, 5137 KiB  
Communication
A Radio-Frequency Ion Trap System for the Multi-Reflection Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer at SHANS and Its Offline Commissioning
by Jun-Ying Wang, Wen-Xue Huang, Yu-Lin Tian, Yong-Sheng Wang, Yue Wang, Wan-Li Zhang, Yuan-Jun Huang, Zai-Guo Gan and Hu-Shan Xu
Atoms 2023, 11(11), 139; https://doi.org/10.3390/atoms11110139 - 26 Oct 2023
Viewed by 1726
Abstract
To precisely measure atomic masses and select neutron-deficient isotopes produced by fusion evaporation reactions, an MRTOF-MS (multi-reflection time-of-flight mass spectrometer) at the SHANS (Spectrometer for Heavy Atom and Nuclear Structure) is being developed. One of the key parts, an RF ion trap system [...] Read more.
To precisely measure atomic masses and select neutron-deficient isotopes produced by fusion evaporation reactions, an MRTOF-MS (multi-reflection time-of-flight mass spectrometer) at the SHANS (Spectrometer for Heavy Atom and Nuclear Structure) is being developed. One of the key parts, an RF ion trap system with the aim to provide brilliant ion pulses with a low energy spread and narrow pulse width for ion preparation prior to injection into the MRTOF mass analyzer, has been constructed and commissioned offline successfully. The principle, construction details and test results are reported. Pulsed beams of 39K1+, 85,87Rb1+ and 133Cs1+ ions have been tested and the amplitudes and frequencies of the RF signals, DC voltages, helium gas pressure and time parameters have been scanned. The corresponding time spreads have reached 0.252 µs, 0.394 µs and 0.450 µs, respectively. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Ion Trapping of Radioactive Ions)
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13 pages, 981 KiB  
Article
Multi-Reflection Time-of-Flight Mass Spectroscopy for Superheavy Nuclides
by Peter Schury, Yuta Ito, Toshitaka Niwase and Michiharu Wada
Atoms 2023, 11(10), 134; https://doi.org/10.3390/atoms11100134 - 17 Oct 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1784
Abstract
The atomic masses of isotopes of elements beyond fermium, which can presently only be produced online via fusion-evaporation reactions, have until recently been determined only from α decay chains reaching nuclides with known atomic masses. Especially in the case of lower-yield nuclides, for [...] Read more.
The atomic masses of isotopes of elements beyond fermium, which can presently only be produced online via fusion-evaporation reactions, have until recently been determined only from α decay chains reaching nuclides with known atomic masses. Especially in the case of lower-yield nuclides, for which the sufficiently detailed nuclear spectroscopy required to fully determine the nuclear structure is not possible, such indirect mass determinations may suffer systematic errors. For many superheavy nuclides, their decay chains end in spontaneous fission or in β-decay prior to reaching nuclides of known mass. To address this dearth of accurate atomic masses, we have developed a multi-reflection time-of-flight mass spectrograph that can make use of decay-correlations to accurately and precisely determine atomic masses for the very low-yield superheavy nuclides. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Ion Trapping of Radioactive Ions)
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11 pages, 603 KiB  
Article
The St. Benedict Facility: Probing Fundamental Symmetries through Mixed Mirror β-Decays
by William S. Porter, Daniel W. Bardayan, Maxime Brodeur, Daniel P. Burdette, Jason A. Clark, Aaron T. Gallant, Alicen M. Houff, James J. Kolata, Biying Liu, Patrick D. O’Malley, Caleb Quick, Fabio Rivero, Guy Savard, Adrian A. Valverde and Regan Zite
Atoms 2023, 11(10), 129; https://doi.org/10.3390/atoms11100129 - 11 Oct 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1599
Abstract
Precise measurements of nuclear beta decays provide a unique insight into the Standard Model due to their connection to the electroweak interaction. These decays help constrain the unitarity or non-unitarity of the Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa (CKM) quark mixing matrix, and can uniquely probe the existence [...] Read more.
Precise measurements of nuclear beta decays provide a unique insight into the Standard Model due to their connection to the electroweak interaction. These decays help constrain the unitarity or non-unitarity of the Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa (CKM) quark mixing matrix, and can uniquely probe the existence of exotic scalar or tensor currents. Of these decays, superallowed mixed mirror transitions have been the least well-studied, in part due to the absence of data on their Fermi to Gamow-Teller mixing ratios (ρ). At the Nuclear Science Laboratory (NSL) at the University of Notre Dame, the Superallowed Transition Beta-Neutrino Decay Ion Coincidence Trap (St. Benedict) is being constructed to determine the ρ for various mirror decays via a measurement of the beta–neutrino angular correlation parameter (aβν) to a relative precision of 0.5%. In this work, we present an overview of the St. Benedict facility and the impact it will have on various Beyond the Standard Model studies, including an expanded sensitivity study of ρ for various mirror nuclei accessible to the facility. A feasibility evaluation is also presented that indicates the measurement goals for many mirror nuclei, which are currently attainable in a week of radioactive beam delivery at the NSL. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Ion Trapping of Radioactive Ions)
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16 pages, 6966 KiB  
Article
Status of CHIP-TRAP: The Central Michigan University High-Precision Penning Trap
by Matthew Redshaw, Ramesh Bhandari, Nadeesha Gamage, Mehedi Hasan, Madhawa Horana Gamage, Dakota K. Keblbeck, Savannah Limarenko and Dilanka Perera
Atoms 2023, 11(10), 127; https://doi.org/10.3390/atoms11100127 - 7 Oct 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1848
Abstract
Precise and accurate atomic mass data provide crucial information for applications in a wide range of fields in physics and beyond, including astrophysics, nuclear structure, particle and neutrino physics, fundamental symmetries, chemistry, and metrology. The most precise atomic mass measurements are performed on [...] Read more.
Precise and accurate atomic mass data provide crucial information for applications in a wide range of fields in physics and beyond, including astrophysics, nuclear structure, particle and neutrino physics, fundamental symmetries, chemistry, and metrology. The most precise atomic mass measurements are performed on charged particles confined in a Penning trap. Here, we describe the development, status, and outlook of CHIP-TRAP: the Central Michigan University high-precision Penning trap. CHIP-TRAP aims to perform ultra-high precision (∼1 part in 1011 fractional precision) mass measurements on stable and long-lived isotopes produced with external ion sources and transported to the Penning traps. Along the way, ions of a particular m/q are selected with a multi-reflection time-of-flight mass separator (MR-TOF-MS), with further filtering performed in a cylindrical capture trap before the ions are transported to a pair of hyperbolic measurement traps. In this paper, we report on the design and status of CHIP-TRAP and present results from the commissioning of the ion sources, MR-TOF-MS, and capture trap. We also provide an outlook on the continued development and commissioning of CHIP-TRAP. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Ion Trapping of Radioactive Ions)
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20 pages, 4321 KiB  
Article
Applications of Machine Learning and Neural Networks for FT-ICR Mass Measurements with SIPT
by Scott E. Campbell, Georg Bollen, Alec Hamaker, Walter Kretzer, Ryan Ringle and Stefan Schwarz
Atoms 2023, 11(10), 126; https://doi.org/10.3390/atoms11100126 - 28 Sep 2023
Viewed by 1533
Abstract
The single-ion Penning trap (SIPT) at the Low-Energy Beam Ion Trapping Facility has been developed to perform precision Penning trap mass measurements of single ions, ideal for the study of exotic nuclei available only at low rates at the Facility for Rare Isotope [...] Read more.
The single-ion Penning trap (SIPT) at the Low-Energy Beam Ion Trapping Facility has been developed to perform precision Penning trap mass measurements of single ions, ideal for the study of exotic nuclei available only at low rates at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). Single-ion signals are very weak—especially if the ion is singly charged—and the few meaningful ion signals must be disentangled from an often larger noise background. A useful approach for simulating Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance signals is outlined and shown to be equivalent to the established yet computationally intense method. Applications of supervised machine learning algorithms for classifying background signals are discussed, and their accuracies are shown to be ≈65% for the weakest signals of interest to SIPT. Additionally, a deep neural network capable of accurately predicting important characteristics of the ions observed by their image charge signal is discussed. Signal classification on an experimental noise dataset was shown to have a false-positive classification rate of 10.5%, and 3.5% following additional filtering. The application of the deep neural network to an experimental 85Rb+ dataset is presented, suggesting that SIPT is sensitive to single-ion signals. Lastly, the implications for future experiments are discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Ion Trapping of Radioactive Ions)
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Review

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10 pages, 4757 KiB  
Review
High-Precision Experiments with Trapped Radioactive Ions Produced at Relativistic Energies
by Timo Dickel, Wolfgang R. Plaß, Emma Haettner, Christine Hornung, Sivaji Purushothaman, Christoph Scheidenberger and Helmut Weick
Atoms 2024, 12(10), 51; https://doi.org/10.3390/atoms12100051 - 8 Oct 2024
Viewed by 583
Abstract
Research on radioactive ion beams produced with in-flight separation of relativistic beams has advanced significantly over the past decades, with contributions to nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics, atomic physics, and other fields. Central to these advancements are improved production, separation, and identification methods.The FRS [...] Read more.
Research on radioactive ion beams produced with in-flight separation of relativistic beams has advanced significantly over the past decades, with contributions to nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics, atomic physics, and other fields. Central to these advancements are improved production, separation, and identification methods.The FRS Ion Catcher at GSI/FAIRexemplifies these technological advancements. The system facilitates high-precision experiments by efficiently stopping and extracting exotic nuclei as ions and making these available at thermal energies. High-energy synchrotron beams enhance the system’s capabilities, enabling unique experimental techniques such as multi-step reactions, mean range bunching, and optimized stopping, as well as novel measurement methods for observables such as beta-delayed neutron emission probabilities. The FRS Ion Catcher has already contributed to various scientific fields, and the future with the Super-FRS at FAIR promises to extend research to even more exotic nuclei and new applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Ion Trapping of Radioactive Ions)
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