Physical Review X (Mar 2014)

Decay-Assisted Laser Spectroscopy of Neutron-Deficient Francium

  • K. M. Lynch,
  • J. Billowes,
  • M. L. Bissell,
  • I. Budinčević,
  • T. E. Cocolios,
  • R. P. De Groote,
  • S. De Schepper,
  • V. N. Fedosseev,
  • K. T. Flanagan,
  • S. Franchoo,
  • R. F. Garcia Ruiz,
  • H. Heylen,
  • B. A. Marsh,
  • G. Neyens,
  • T. J. Procter,
  • R. E. Rossel,
  • S. Rothe,
  • I. Strashnov,
  • H. H. Stroke,
  • K. D. A. Wendt

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.4.011055
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4, no. 1
p. 011055

Abstract

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This paper reports on the hyperfine-structure and radioactive-decay studies of the neutron-deficient francium isotopes ^{202–206}Fr performed with the Collinear Resonance Ionization Spectroscopy (CRIS) experiment at the ISOLDE facility, CERN. The high resolution innate to collinear laser spectroscopy is combined with the high efficiency of ion detection to provide a highly sensitive technique to probe the hyperfine structure of exotic isotopes. The technique of decay-assisted laser spectroscopy is presented, whereby the isomeric ion beam is deflected to a decay-spectroscopy station for alpha-decay tagging of the hyperfine components. Here, we present the first hyperfine-structure measurements of the neutron-deficient francium isotopes ^{202–206}Fr, in addition to the identification of the low-lying states of ^{202,204}Fr performed at the CRIS experiment.