The Heaviest Elements in the Limelight, Precision Measurements with Lasers and Ion Traps
The heaviest elements with Z > 100 attract interest from nuclear and atomic physics due to their distinct properties. Nuclear shell effects are responsible for their very existence stabilizing them against immediate disintegration by spontaneous fission. Strong relativistic effects influence their electronic structure and chemical behavior as certain orbitals are stabilized while others become less bound. Precision measurements of different atomic and nuclear properties improve our understanding of these exotic objects and probe the nature of the underlying forces. Accurate experimental data also challenge theoretical predictions and contribute to their improvement. Numerous precision measurements of ground state properties of radionuclides across the nuclear chart have been obtained in recent years utilizing ion trap and laser spectroscopy-based techniques. New methods for slowing down high-energy beams in buffer gas cells have opened the door to extend such experiments to the heaviest nuclides. I will discuss such developments and present recent results on atomic and nuclear properties of nobelium isotopes obtained at the GSI in Darmstadt, Germany.
Michael Block (GSI et Helmholtz-Institut Mainz)
