Does size matter? Exploring the viability of measuring the charge radius of the first excited nuclear state in muonic zirconium

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dc.contributor.authorWilkinson-Zan, Benjamin
dc.contributor.supervisorPospelov, Maxim
dc.date.accessioned2020-08-26T05:10:53Z
dc.date.available2020-08-26T05:10:53Z
dc.date.copyright2020en_US
dc.date.issued2020-08-25
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of Physics and Astronomyen_US
dc.degree.levelMaster of Science M.Sc.en_US
dc.description.abstractFrom the point of view of the electromagnetic interaction, empirical descriptions of the nucleus involve only a few parameters, one of the most important being the nuclear charge radius. This has been well measured for ground state nuclei, but it is difficult to measure for excited states, since they decay too quickly for conventional methods to be used. We study the atomic transitions in muonic ^{90}Zr and find that the nuclear charge radius of the first excited state can be inferred by measuring the gamma emissions from certain transitions. We find that with 1keV photon resolution, we can infer a difference between the charge radius of the nuclear ground state and first excited state as small as 0.13%. We will work in units where h = c = 4\pi\epsilon_0 = 1 so that e^2 = \alpha \approx 1/137 (unless otherwise specified). Mass, momentum, and energy will have units of eV, whereas distances will be given in eV^{-1}. In qualitative discussion, we will sometimes revert to discussing distances in meters due to the familiarity of typical scales (e.g. nuclear radius, Bohr radius). When working with 4-vectors in Minkowski space, we use the metric convention (+,-,-,-).en_US
dc.description.scholarlevelGraduateen_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1828/12029
dc.languageEnglisheng
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.subjectPhysicsen_US
dc.subjectNuclear Physicsen_US
dc.subjectAtomic Physicsen_US
dc.subjectMuonen_US
dc.subjectMuonic Zirconiumen_US
dc.subjectZirconiumen_US
dc.subjectElectric Monopoleen_US
dc.subjectTwo Photonen_US
dc.subjectMagnetic Dipoleen_US
dc.subjectExcited Nuclear Stateen_US
dc.subjectNuclear Charge Radiusen_US
dc.titleDoes size matter? Exploring the viability of measuring the charge radius of the first excited nuclear state in muonic zirconiumen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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