A decay microscope for trapped neon isotopes

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel decay microscope system designed to measure the energy distribution of daughter nuclei from beta-decay of laser trapped neon isotopes, enhancing sensitivity to new physics effects.

Contribution

The paper introduces a decay microscope that improves measurement sensitivity and reduces systematic bias in studying beta-decay of neon isotopes.

Findings

Monte-Carlo simulations show increased sensitivity

Systematic bias is minimized

Design is effective for energy distribution measurement

Abstract

We review the design, simulation, and tests, of a detection system for measuring the energy distribution of daughter nuclei recoiling from the beta-decay of laser trapped neon isotopes. This distribution is sensitive to several new physics effects in the weak sector. Our `decay microscope' relies on imaging the velocity distribution of high energy recoil ions in coincidence with electrons shaken-off in the decay. We demonstrate by way of Monte-Carlo simulation, that the nuclear microscope increases the statistical sensitivity of kinematic measurements to the underlying energy distribution, and limits the main systematic bias caused by discrepancy in the trap position along the detection axis.