0000000000033350
AUTHOR
H. Backe
Future Aspects of Positron Spectroscopy
In the first week of this conference experimentalists made us familiar with the features of the positron peaks observed in the collision of very heavy ions with atoms. We learned that these peaks are not understandable in terms of known positron production mechanisms like monoenergetic pair decay of excited nuclear levels or the proposed spontaneous positron production in superheavy atoms. In addition, theorists told us that, at present, also the interpretation that the positron peak structures originate from the decay of a previously not observed neutral particle is in contradiction to well-known experimental facts. Some of you may have, in addition, become confused by the results of the t…
Electron channeling experiments with bent silicon single crystals—a reanalysis based on a modified Fokker-Planck equation
A surprising small dechanneling length was observed at (111) channeling of ultrarelativistic electrons in a 60 $\mu$m thick silicon single crystal with a bending radius of 0.15 m. The experiments were conducted at beam energies between 3.35 and 14 GeV at the Facility for Advanced Accelerator Experimental Tests (FACET at SLAC, USA). It is shown in this paper that the small dechanneling lengths can well be reproduced with a modified Fokker-Planck equation for plane crystals in which a crystal bending has been heuristically introduced. Encouraged by this result experiments have been reconsidered which were performed at the Mainz Microtron MAMI with (110) silicon undulator crystals. The results…
Correlated e+ e− peaks observed in heavy-ion collisions
Abstract Three very narrow e + e − sum-energy peaks around 610, 750, and 810 keV have been observed in U+Th as well as in U+Ta collisions at beam energies around the Coulomb barrier. As no processes involving conventional atomic and nuclear physics were found to describe their origin, the data were in particular confronted with the hypothesis that the lines are due to the two-body decay of neutral objects in an e + e + pair. Although the 810 keV sum-energy line observed in U+Th is consistent with the prompt two-body e + e − decay of a neutral object if created nearly at rest in the heavy-ion center-of-mass system, the other lines require at least a considerably more complicated scenario if …
Positron Production in Heavy Ion-Atom Collisions
The question of pair creation in strong electrical fields is a very old problem. Already in 1929, within the framework of the new Dirac theory of the electron1, Klein considered the behaviour of an electron wave with a total energy E = ET + mec2 impinging on a one-dimensional step barrier potential Vo> mec2/e (fig. 1a). If the kinetic energy ET of an electron travelling on the z-axis from left to right is less than eVo, then for z>0 an exponentially damped wave function is expected as a solution of the Schrodinger equation. According to Klein’s calculations with the Dirac equation, this behaviour was also found for eVo-2mec2 <ET<eVo, but for a kinetic energy ET<eVo-2mec2 the wave function s…
Magnetic hyperfine anomaly in muonic193Ir
The nuclear decay of the 5/2+ 139 keV state to the 3/2+ ground state was observed in muonic193Ir. The hyperfine splitting of the 3/2+ state and 5/2+ state was determined to be 640±100 eV and 1280±160 eV, respectively. The ground state splitting is about twice that of a point nucleus, an anomaly never observed this large. This is mainly due to the different radial distribution of spin and orbital magnetization of a d3/2 proton configuration for which these contributions nearly cancel to zero in the magnetic moment. But calculations including configuration mixing and coupling to a vibrating or a deformed core show deviations. The groundstate anomaly is in line with that observed by the Mossba…
Comments on the radial distribution of charged particles in a magnetic field
Magnetic guiding fields in combination with energy dispersive semiconductor detectors have been employed already more than 50 years ago for in-beam internal conversion electron spectroscopy. Even then it was recognized that efficiency modulations may appear as function of the electron energy, arising when electrons hit a baffle or miss the sensitive area of the detector. Current high precision beta decay experiments of polarized neutrons with conceptional similar experimental devices resulted in a detailed study of the point spread function (PSF). The latter describes the radial probability distribution of mono-energetic electrons at the detector plane. Singularities occur as function of th…
Design study for a 500 MeV positron beam at the Mainz Microtron MAMI
A design study has been performed for a positron beam with an energy of 500 MeV to be realized at the applied physics area of the Mainz Microtron MAMI. Positrons will be created after pair conversion of bremsstrahlung, produced by the 855 MeV electron beam af MAMI in a tungsten converter target. From the two conceivable geometries (i) pair conversion in the bremsstrahlung converter target itself, and (ii) bremsstrahlung pair conversion in a separated lead foil, the former was considered in detail. Positrons will be energy selected within an outside open electron beam-line bending magnet, and bent back by an additional sector magnet. Magnetic focusing elements in between are designed to prep…
Towards Laser Spectroscopy of Superheavy Elements
The sensitivity of laser spectroscopic methods has been increased over the past two decades dramatically so that today the spectroscopy of superheavy elements appears on the horizon as a realistic option. For elements with Z > 100 no experimental atomic or ionic level structure information is known so far. These elements cannot be bread in high flux nuclear power reactors via successive neutron capture and \(\beta ^-\) decay but must be produced in accelerator-based nuclear fusion-evaporation reactions. Laser spectroscopic investigations at low rates take advantage of the storage of ions or atoms in rare gas traps. A first successful experiment was conducted only recently for the element no…
Channeling experiments at planar diamond and silicon single crystals with electrons from the Mainz Microtron MAMI
Line structures were observed for (110) planar channeling of electrons in a diamond single crystal even at a beam energy of 180 MeV . This observation motivated us to initiate dechanneling length measurements as function of the beam energy since the occupation of quantum states in the channeling potential is expected to enhance the dechanneling length. High energy loss signals, generated as a result of emission of a bremsstrahlung photon with about half the beam energy at channeling of 450 and 855 MeV electrons, were measured as function of the crystal thickness. The analysis required additional assumptions which were extracted from the numerical solution of the Fokker-Planck equation. Prel…
Positron Production In Heavy-Ion Collisions
Atomic systems with a nuclear charge Z much greater than 100 exhibit a number of unique features not otherwise found in nature. Two characteristic properties are illustrated in Figs. 1 and 2. In Fig. 1 we have plotted the binding energy of a K-shell electron around hypothetical nuclei up to Z ≈ 200. For Z > 150 the binding energy exceeds the rest energy m e c 2 of the electron; i.e., adding the electron to the nucleus actually diminishes the total mass of the system. At the critical charge Z c ≈ 170–175 the binding energy reaches twice the electron rest mass, the threshold for spontaneous creation of an electron-positron pair. As has been discussed extensively in the literature (Pieper and …