Cargando…

The observation of vibrating pear-shapes in radon nuclei

There is a large body of evidence that atomic nuclei can undergo octupole distortion and assume the shape of a pear. This phenomenon is important for measurements of electric-dipole moments of atoms, which would indicate CP violation and hence probe physics beyond the Standard Model of particle phys...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Butler, P. A., Gaffney, L. P., Spagnoletti, P., Konki, J., Scheck, M., Smith, J. F., Abrahams, K., Bowry, M., Cederkäll, J., Chupp, T., de Angelis, G., De Witte, H., Garrett, P. E., Goldkuhle, A., Henrich, C., Illana, A., Johnston, K., Joss, D. T., Keatings, J. M., Kelly, N. A., Komorowska, M., Kröll, T., Lozano, M., Nara Singh, B. S., O’Donnell, D., Ojala, J., Page, R. D., Pedersen, L. G., Raison, C., Reiter, P., Rodriguez, J. A., Rosiak, D., Rothe, S., Shneidman, T. M., Siebeck, B., Seidlitz, M., Sinclair, J., Stryjczyk, M., Van Duppen, P., Vinals, S., Virtanen, V., Warr, N., Wrzosek-Lipska, K., Zielinska, M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6554308/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31171788
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10494-5
Descripción
Sumario:There is a large body of evidence that atomic nuclei can undergo octupole distortion and assume the shape of a pear. This phenomenon is important for measurements of electric-dipole moments of atoms, which would indicate CP violation and hence probe physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. Isotopes of both radon and radium have been identified as candidates for such measurements. Here, we observed the low-lying quantum states in (224)Rn and (226)Rn by accelerating beams of these radioactive nuclei. We show that radon isotopes undergo octupole vibrations but do not possess static pear-shapes in their ground states. We conclude that radon atoms provide less favourable conditions for the enhancement of a measurable atomic electric-dipole moment.