On October 5th, Prof. Thomas Stöhlker, head of the atomic physics department, was awarded the Certificate of Visiting Professor of the Institute of Modern Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. During the ceremony, Stöhlker talked about the current progress of SPARC and FAIR and promised to advocate the scientific collaboration between the two institutes.
CRYRING@ESR: A Study Group Report
The Swedish heavy ion storage ring CRYRING is presently being prepared for transportation to Darmstadt as in-kind contribution to FAIR. From discussions of its future at FAIR the idea was born to install the CRYRING in the vicinity of the ESR storage ring inside the Target Hall. A dedicated study group has worked out the potential as FAIR test facility, the required resources, and a possible location for CRYRING@ESR. The results are presented in "CRYRING@ESR: A study group report".
From the science perspective, CRYRING@ESR will offer a unique opportunity for research with intense beams of low-energy heavy, highly charged ion beams of all species which can be created at the GSI/FAIR accelerator complex. Thus, we are presently in the process of preparing a "Physics book" to emphasize the scientific potential of CRYRING@ESR and everyone is invited to consider a contribution to this manuscript.
Wilma-Moser Award for Renate Märtin
Renate Märtin, former PhD student in the atomic physics division and currently Post Doc at the Helmholtz Institute Jena, has received the Wilma-Moser-Prize 2011 of the Faculty of Mathematics and Science of the University of Heidelberg for the youngest female PhD student with ’summa cum laude’ as the final grade.
FOCAL – Production run on Au78+ successfully completed
In a production run conducted over a period of three weeks at the gas jet of the ESR storage ring the 2p1/2,3/2→1s1/2 Lyman-α transitions of hydrogen-like Au78+ were measured in high resolution via spectroscopy of the the corresponding x-rays located near 63 keV. The aim of the experiment is to access the quantum-electrodynamic (QED) contributions to the 1s binding energy experimentally in order to provide an accurate comparison with the most advanced QED calculations.
This experiment has benefitted from an overwhelming support during preparation and during conducting the beamtime, Thanks to all who contributed.
Wilfried Nörtershäuser's young investigator group at the University of Mainz in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute of Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg and the KU Leuven managed to measure the nuclear charge radius of the very neutron rich beryllium isotope 12Be. It was found to be larger than in 11Be, in contradiction to shell model predictions. In the beryllium isotopes the number of eight neutrons appears to be no magic number.