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MPINP:
Präzisionsexperimente - Abteilung Blaum
Abstract:
The novel transportable PILOT-Trap experiment set up in the framework of this thesis
aims to measure masses of short-lived nuclides with low production rates and half-lives
> 100 ms with relative uncertainties of about 10-8. Applications for these precision mass
measurements include atomic, nuclear and neutrino physics.
The setup of the experiment includes a 6T superconducting coldhead-cooled magnet, which
ensures transportability to different radioactive beam facilities. There, this setup enables
mass measurements of, for example, heavy or superheavy nuclides that are produced only
in tiny quantities of a few ions per hour. To deal with these low production rates a single
trap is planned to be used for cooling the ion’s motions with a modified dynamic buffer-gas
cooling technique as well as for measuring the ion’s motional frequencies. To make such a
combination of two techniques in one trap feasible, a fast piezo valve is being developed,
which enables a rapid and precisely timed helium injection into the Penning trap, followed
by a fast helium release to be directly able to measure in the same trap. The latter is going
to be realized by the developed rotating-disc approach. The cooling of the ion’s motions
and the measurement of its motional frequencies in the same trap increases the overall
efficiency by avoiding the ion transport stage between different traps.
In addition to the development of the dynamic cooling method, the setup and initial test
measurements of the PILOT-Trap mass spectrometer developed in this work are presented.
These range from the initial detection of ions at the detector, through the storage and
cooling of ions, to the performance of phase-sensitive measurements.
