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News

FLAMINGOS

Strong Showing at International PLANCKS Competition

The Heidelberg teams performed impressively in Barcelona – securing second place and a solid position in the top half.   more ...
ISOQUANT

Quantum Physics at Noon - Tiny Particles, Big Ideas

This summer term, ISOQUANT and the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics are hosting the 'Akademische Mittagspause'   more ...
MU3E GROUP ANDRE SCHÖNING

Second funding period for Mu3e experiment

A further period of four years has been granted by the DFG.   more ...
CERN: MAXIMILIEN BRICE

Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics 2025

The 2025 prize has been awarded to ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb   more ...
FLAMINGOS

First and fifth place in the Dopplers-competition

Congratulations to "Flamingos" and "Knechte Ruprechts"!   more ...
WOLFRAM PERNICE

POEM in physics

Precision Organoid Engineering for Multi-Organ Interaction Studies (POEM)   more ...
JULIAN SCHMITT

Quantum sites in the Quantum Year 2025

The “100 quantum sites” page for the quantum year is online   more ...
MICHELA MAPELLI

DFG funds Dormant Black Holes

Michela Mapelli receives DFG grant for "DoBlack".   more ...
SOPHIE WARKEN

Stalagmites and Climate Dynamics in Europe

Sophie Warken's research on stalagmites in a Romanian cave   more ...
DFG/DAVID AUSSERHOFER

Leibniz Prize for Wolfram Pernice

Wolfram Pernice has been awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize 2025   more ...

Physics colloquium

Friday, 23. May 2025 5:00 pm  Nuclear Physics with a laser – the story of Thorium-229

Prof. Dr. Thorsten Schumm, Quantum Metrology group, Atominstitut, TU Wien

Among all known isotopes, Thorium-229 has the lowest nuclear excited state, only 8.4 eV above the ground state. This so-called “isomer” is accessible to VUV laser excitation and a multitude of applications at the interface of atomic and nuclear physics have been proposed, including a nuclear clock, a gamma laser and a sensitive detector for variations of fundamental constants. After decades of attempts to determine the exact isomer energy and other nuclear properties, we report on two experiments which resonantly excite the isomer by lasers and spectroscopically resolve the nuclear quadrupole splitting in a single crystal environment. This allows us to determine the sensitivity of the nuclear clock transition to variations of the fine structure constant, which exceeds all schemes involving electron shell transitions by 3 orders of magnitude.


 

Contact

Dekanat der Fakultät für Physik und Astronomie
Im Neuenheimer Feld 226
69120 Heidelberg

E-Mail: dekanat (at) physik.uni-heidelberg.de

Tel: +49 6221 54 19648