학술논문
Active Production of the Isomeric State of Thorium-229 Nucleus with the Lowest Excitation Energy―Toward the Nuclear Clock / 最小エネルギーをもつトリウム229アイソマー状態の人工的生成――原子核時計の実現に向けて
Document Type
Journal Article
Author
Source
日本物理学会誌 / Butsuri. 2021, 76(7):456
Subject
Language
Japanese
ISSN
0029-0181
2423-8872
2423-8872
Abstract
Thorium-229 (Th-229) has the lowest energy excited state of ～8.3 eV among thousands of nuclei. Its energy level is low enough to be excited optically by a laser and thus could be utilized as an ultra-precise “nuclear clock”. Despite of many years research, there was no successful laser excitation so far. This was primarily due to the difficulty in freely accessing the isomeric state. We have developed a novel method of producing the isomeric state using synchrotron radiation X-ray. This method enables us to produce plenty of the isomeric states with a controllable manner, which would accelerate a study towards realization of “nuclear clock”.