Postdoc positions

Postdoctoral position to perform research in the field of Nuclear Structure and Astrophysics with stored highly-charged radioactive ions

The Max-Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics invites applications for a post-doctoral position in the area of nuclear structure and astrophysics research.

The ion storage-cooler ring ESR at GSI , Darmstadt, coupled to a high-energy synchrotron SIS and a fragment separator FRS, is a unique tool for pursuing the forefront nuclear and atomic physics experiments with stored and cooled highly-charged ions.

Broad-band Schottky (SMS) and Isochronous (IMS) mass spectrometry are extremely powerful methods for simultaneous measurements of big numbers of nuclear masses in one experiment. The former method is applied to electron-cooled beams and can therefore address nuclides with half-lives longer than about one second. The shortest lifetimes that can be accessed with the second method are in the few-ten microsecond range. Both methods are sensitive to single stored ions.

The GSI facility is presently the only tool for addressing radioactive decays of highly-charged ions. Due to the ultra-high vacuum of about 10^-11 mbar, the high atomic charge states of stored ions can be preserved for extensive periods of time, and their decay characteristics can be accurately measured with time-resolved SMS. These measurements are of direct importance in nuclear astrophysics since in hot stellar environments the atoms are highly ionized. Main attention is presently devoted to investigations of two-body beta decays, i.e. the bound-state beta decay and orbital electron capture (EC). In such two-body beta decays, the monochromatic (anti)neutrinos created in electron flavor eigenstate are entangled with the recoiling daughter ions by the energy and momentum conservation.

The position is open for 3 years starting in Autumn 2009. The work at GSI is supervised by .

The candidates are asked to submit the usual documents (CV, Copy of Diploma thesis and PhD thesis) to Prof. Dr. Klaus Blaum (Postal address: Max-Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, P.O. Box 10 39 80, D-69029 Heidelberg, Germany).