PhD student positions
PhD student positions 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 several doctoral positions in the area of nuclear structure and astrophysics research.
The group performs research at the ion storage-cooler ring ESR 
at GSI , Darmstadt,
which is coupled to a high-energy synchrotron SIS and a fragment separator FRS.
This facility 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.
Moreover, the group takes active part in preparing storage-ring experiments at the
future FAIR project at GSI. FAIR will provide unprecedentedly high intensities for
radioactive as well as stable beams. A complex of dedicated storage rings for
precision experiments is being designed. These are the collector ring CR, where
accurate mass measurements of shortest-lived rare nuclides will be performed and the
high-energy storage ring HESR , where the high intensity ion beams can be accumulated
for studies of rare decays of long-lived nuclides or for atomic physics experiments with
highly-charged ions at relativistic energies. Furthermore, the CRYRING at ESR project
will enable highly-charged ions at low kinetic energies down to a few hundreds keV/u.
The positions are open for 3 years.
Graduate students, who want to use the results of his(her) research, are offered to submit after 3 years PhD thesis (in German or English language) to Heidelberg University. The PhD work at GSI is supervised by
.
The candidates are asked to submit the usual documents (CV, Copy of Diploma thesis) to Prof. Dr. Klaus Blaum (Postal address: Max-Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, P.O. Box 10 39 80, D-69029 Heidelberg, Germany).