Cross-disciplinary work on high-precision measurements pushes bounds on dark forces
When world-leading teams join forces, new findings are bound to be made. This is what happened when quantum physicists from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK) and the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Braunschweig combined atomic and nuclear physics with unprecedented accuracy using two different methods of measurement. Together with new calculations of the structure of atomic nuclei, theoretical physicists from the Technical University of Darmstadt and Leibniz University Hannover were able to show that measurements on the electron shell of an atom can provide information about the deformation of the atomic nucleus. At the same time, the precision measurements have set new limits regarding the strength of a potential dark force between neutrons and electrons. The results have been published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
Please read more in the Physical Review Letters article and our press release.
Read also the press release of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB).
Long-sought measurement of exotic beta decay in thallium helps extract the timescale of the birth of the Sun
An international collaboration of scientists succeeded in the measurement of the bound-state beta decay of fully-ionised thallium (205Tl81+) ions at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, Darmstadt. The experiment, conducted at the Experimental Storage Ring (ESR) of GSI/FAIR and analysed in partnership with TRIUMF, Vancouver, revealed that the half-life of bare 205Tl81+ days, twice as long as theoretically expected. This measurement has profound effects on the production of radioactive lead (205Pb) in asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars, which were simulated by collaborators at Konkoly Observatory, Budapest, and can be used to help determine how long the Sun took to form in the early Solar System. The results have been published in the journal Nature.
Please read more in the Nature article and our press release.
Read also the press release of GSI Darmstadt.
Lists of all publications
of the scientific research results of the "Stored and Cooled Ions" Division.