Weak interaction studies with exotic nuclei

When?

Thursday 12 May 2011, 11:00

Where?

30 BB 03 Physics Seminar Room

Open to:

Staff, Students

Speaker:

Bertram Blank, CEN Bordeaux-Gradignan

Studies performed in the frame work of the weak-interaction standard model can use the atomic nucleus as a laboratory. In our experiments, we studied the super-allowed beta decay and the mirror beta decay of nuclei to determine the reduced transition strength ft which depends on the decay heat of the radioactive decay, the so-called Q value, on the branching ratio of a particular decay branch, the total beta-decay half-life of the nucleus, and, for the mirror decays, on the Fermi-to-Gamow-Teller ratio. After a few small corrections, the vector-current coupling constant of the weak interaction and the Vud element of the CKM quark-mixing matrix can be determined.

In the talk, I will present the state of the art of the subject and describe our contribution in the past as well as in the future this domain of research.