Laser trapping of radioactive francium atoms

Abstract

The difficult problem of quickly slowing and cooling nuclear reaction products so that they can be injected into a laser trap has been solved by several groups and there are now strong efforts to work with the trapped atoms. The atoms are confined in the trap to a small spatial volume of the order of 1 mm 3, but more importantly, they are also confined in velocity, which makes them an ideal sample for spectroscopic measurements with other lasers. We have recently trapped radioactive francium and have embarked on a program to further study the francium atom as a prelude to a test of the Standard Model analogous to previous work with Cs. Our sample of 3 min 210Fr now contains over 20 000 atoms, and is readily visible with an ordinary TV camera. We work on-line with the accelerator, and continuously load the trap to replace losses due to decay and collisions with background gas. We have maintained a sample of Fr atoms in the trap for over 10 hours, with occasional adjustment of the trapping laser frequency to account for drifts. The proposed test of the Standard Model will require accurate calculation of its atomic properties. We are currently testing these calculations by measuring other predicted quantities.