Radioactive decays of highly-charged ions

¹ Key Laboratory of High Precision Nuclear Spectroscopy and Center for Nuclear Matter Science, Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China
² Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Saupfercheckweg 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
³ GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, Planckstraße 1, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany
⁴ Justus-Liebig Universität, 35392 Gießen, Germany
⁵ Technische Universität München, 85748 Garching, Germany
⁶ CERN, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland
⁷ Ruprecht-Karls Universität Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
⁸ ExtreMe Matter Institute EMMI, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany
⁹ TRIUMF, 4004 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 2A3, Canada
¹⁰ AGH University of Science and Technology, Kraków, Poland
¹¹ Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, 07737 Jena, Germany
¹² Helmholtz-Institut Jena, 07743 Jena, Germany
¹³ Graduate School of Science Engineering, Saitama Univ., Saitama 338-8570, Japan

^a e-mail: gaobsh@impcas.ac.cn
^b e-mail: y.litvinov@gsi.de

Published online: 28 May 2015

Abstract

Access to stored and cooled highly-charged radionuclides offers unprecedented opportunities to perform high-precision investigations of their decays. Since the few-electron ions, e.g. hydrogen- or helium-like ions, are quantum mechanical systems with clear electronic ground state configurations, the decay studies of such ions are performed under well-defined conditions and allow for addressing fundamental aspects of the decay process. Presented here is a compact review of the relevant experiments conducted at the Experimental Storage Ring ESR of GSI. A particular emphasis is given to the investigations of the two-body beta decay, namely the bound-state β-decay and its time-mirrored counterpart, orbital electron-capture.