Near-degenerate electron level pairs in Th+ enable a resonant electronic-bridge route to excite the 229Th nuclear isomer and shorten its lifetime, with enhancement factors up to ~10^6.
Theory of internal conversion of the thorium-229 nuclear isomer in solid-state hosts
1 Pith paper cite this work. Polarity classification is still indexing.
1
Pith paper citing it
abstract
Laser excitation of thorium-229 nuclei in doped wide bandgap crystals has been demonstrated recently, opening the possibility of developing ultrastable solid-state clocks and sensitive searches for new physics. We develop a quantitative theory of the internal conversion of isomeric thorium-229 in solid-state hosts. The internal conversion of the isomer proceeds by resonantly exciting a valence band electron to a defect state, accompanied by multi-phonon emission. We demonstrate that, if the process is energetically allowed, it generally quenches the isomer on timescales much faster than the isomer's radiative lifetime, despite thorium being in the +4 charge state in the valence band.
citation-role summary
background 1
citation-polarity summary
fields
physics.atom-ph 1years
2025 1verdicts
CONDITIONAL 1roles
background 1polarities
unclear 1representative citing papers
citing papers explorer
-
Resonance nuclear excitation of the $^{229}$Th nucleus via electronic bridge process in Th~II
Near-degenerate electron level pairs in Th+ enable a resonant electronic-bridge route to excite the 229Th nuclear isomer and shorten its lifetime, with enhancement factors up to ~10^6.