Canadian Penning Trap Mass Spectrometer

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The Canadian Penning Trap Mass Spectrometer (CPT) is one of the major pieces of experimental equipment that is installed on the ATLAS superconducting heavy-ion linac facility at the Physics Division of the Argonne National Laboratory. It was developed and operated by physicist Guy Savard and a collaboration of other scientists at Argonne, the University of Manitoba, McGill University, Texas A&M University and the State University of New York.

Argonne Tandem Linear Accelerator System

The Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS) is a scientific user facility at Argonne National Laboratory. ATLAS is the first superconducting linear accelerator for heavy ions at energies in the vicinity of the Coulomb barrier.

Argonne National Laboratory science and engineering research national laboratory in Lamont, IL, United States

Argonne National Laboratory is a science and engineering research national laboratory operated by the University of Chicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy located in Lemont, Illinois, outside Chicago. It is the largest national laboratory by size and scope in the Midwest.

The University of Manitoba is a public research university in Manitoba, Canada. Its main campus is located in the Fort Garry neighbourhood of southern Winnipeg with other campuses throughout the city. Founded in 1877, it is Western Canada's first university. The university maintains a reputation as a top research-intensive post-secondary educational institution and conducts more research annually than any other university in the region.

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Development

The CPT was originally built for the Tandem Accelerator Superconducting Cyclotron (TASCC) facility at Chalk River Laboratories in Chalk River, Ontario, Canada. However, it was transferred to Argonne National Laboratory when the TASCC accelerator was decommissioned in 1998 due to funding issues. [1]

Chalk River Laboratories nuclear research facility located near Chalk River, Canada

Chalk River Laboratories is a Canadian nuclear research facility near Chalk River, about 180 km (110 mi) north-west of Ottawa.

The CPT spectrometer is designed to provide high-precision mass measurements of short-lived isotopes using radio-frequency (RF) fields. Accurate mass measurements of particular isotopes such as selenium-68 are important in the understanding of the detailed reaction mechanisms involved in the rapid-proton capture process, which occurs in astrophysical events like supernovae explosions and X-ray bursts. An X-ray burst is one possible site for the rp-process mechanism which involves the accretion of hydrogen and helium from one star onto the surface of its neutron star binary companion. Mass measurements are required as key inputs to network calculations used to describe this process in terms of the abundances of the nuclides produced, the light-curve profile of the X-ray bursts, and the energy produced. In the current configuration, more than 100 radioactive isotopes have been measured with half-lives much less than a second and with a precision (Δm/m) approaching 10−9. [2]

Spectrometer instrument used to measure properties of light

A spectrometer is a scientific instrument used to separate and measure spectral components of a physical phenomenon. Spectrometer is a broad term often used to describe instruments that measure a continuous variable of a phenomenon where the spectral components are somehow mixed. In visible light a spectrometer can for instance separate white light and measure individual narrow bands of color, called a spectrum, while a mass spectrometer measures the spectrum of the masses of the atoms or molecules present in a gas. The first spectrometers were used to split light into an array of separate colors. Spectrometers were developed in early studies of physics, astronomy, and chemistry. The capability of spectroscopy to determine chemical composition drove its advancement and continues to be one of its primary uses. Spectrometers are used in astronomy to analyze the chemical composition of stars and planets, and spectrometers gather data on the origin of the universe.

Selenium Chemical element with atomic number 34

Selenium is a chemical element with symbol Se and atomic number 34. It is a nonmetal with properties that are intermediate between the elements above and below in the periodic table, sulfur and tellurium, and also has similarities to arsenic. It rarely occurs in its elemental state or as pure ore compounds in the Earth's crust. Selenium was discovered in 1817 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius, who noted the similarity of the new element to the previously discovered tellurium.

In chemistry, a reaction mechanism is the step by step sequence of elementary reactions by which overall chemical change occurs.

Recently, a novel injection system, the RF gas cooler, has been installed on the CPT to allow fast reaction products to be decelerated, thermalized and bunched for rapid and efficient injection. This enhances the investigative capabilities of the CPT on isotopes around the N=Z line with particular emphasis on isotopes of interest to low-energy tests of the electroweak interaction and the rp-process. [3]

Electroweak interaction unified description of electromagnetism and the weak interaction

In particle physics, the electroweak interaction is the unified description of two of the four known fundamental interactions of nature: electromagnetism and the weak interaction. Although these two forces appear very different at everyday low energies, the theory models them as two different aspects of the same force. Above the unification energy, on the order of 246 GeV, they would merge into a single electroweak force. Thus, if the universe is hot enough (approximately 1015 K, a temperature not exceeded since shortly after the Big Bang), then the electromagnetic force and weak force merge into a combined electroweak force. During the quark epoch, the electroweak force split into the electromagnetic and weak force.

See also

Gammasphere

The Gammasphere is a third generation gamma ray spectrometer used to study rare and exotic nuclear physics. It consists of 108 Compton-suppressed large volume, high-purity germanium detectors arranged in a spherical shell.

Related Research Articles

Mass spectrometry analytical technique based on determining mass to charge ratio of ions

Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that ionizes chemical species and sorts the ions based on their mass-to-charge ratio. In simpler terms, a mass spectrum measures the masses within a sample. Mass spectrometry is used in many different fields and is applied to pure samples as well as complex mixtures.

National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory building in Michigan, United States

The National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) is located on the campus of Michigan State University and is the leading rare isotope research facility in the United States. Established in 1963, the cyclotron laboratory is the nation’s largest nuclear science facility on a university campus. Funded primarily by the National Science Foundation and MSU, the NSCL operates two superconducting cyclotrons. The lab’s scientists investigate the properties of rare isotopes and nuclear reactions. In nature, these reactions would take place in stars and exploding stellar environments such as novae and supernovae. The K1200 cyclotron is the highest-energy continuous beam accelerator in the world.

CPT or Cpt may stand for:

Penning trap device for the storage of charged particles

A Penning trap is a device for the storage of charged particles using a homogeneous axial magnetic field and an inhomogeneous quadrupole electric field. This kind of trap is particularly well suited to precision measurements of properties of ions and stable subatomic particles. Geonium atoms have been created and studied this way, to measure the electron magnetic moment. Recently these traps have been used in the physical realization of quantum computation and quantum information processing by trapping qubits. Penning traps are used in many laboratories worldwide, including CERN, to store antimatter like antiprotons.

TRIUMF particle physics laboratory in Canada

TRIUMF is Canada's national particle accelerator centre. It is considered Canada's premier physics laboratory, and is consistently regarded as one of the leading subatomic physics research centers on the international level. Owned and operated by a consortium of universities as a joint venture, TRIUMF is located on the south campus of one of its founding members – the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia. TRIUMF houses the world's largest cyclotron, a source of 520 MeV protons, which was named an IEEE Milestone in 2010. TRIUMF's accelerator-focused activities involve particle physics, nuclear physics, nuclear medicine, materials science, and detector and accelerator development.

Accelerator mass spectrometry

Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) is a form of mass spectrometry that accelerates ions to extraordinarily high kinetic energies before mass analysis. The special strength of AMS among the mass spectrometric methods is its power to separate a rare isotope from an abundant neighboring mass. The method suppresses molecular isobars completely and in many cases can separate atomic isobars also. This makes possible the detection of naturally occurring, long-lived radio-isotopes such as 10Be, 36Cl, 26Al and 14C. Their typical isotopic abundance ranges from 10−12 to 10−18. AMS can outperform the competing technique of decay counting for all isotopes where the half-life is long enough.

Ion trap combination of electric or magnetic fields used to capture charged particles

An ion trap is a combination of electric or magnetic fields used to capture charged particles, often in a system isolated from an external environment. Ion traps have a number of scientific uses such as mass spectrometry, basic physics research, and controlling quantum states. The two most common types of ion trap are the Penning trap, which forms a potential via a combination of electric and magnetic fields, and the Paul trap which forms a potential via a combination of static and oscillating electric fields.

Fourier-transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry is a type of mass analyzer for determining the mass-to-charge ratio (m/z) of ions based on the cyclotron frequency of the ions in a fixed magnetic field. The ions are trapped in a Penning trap, where they are excited to a larger cyclotron radius by an oscillating electric field orthogonal to the magnetic field. After the excitation field is removed, the ions are rotating at their cyclotron frequency in phase. These ions induce a charge on a pair of electrodes as the packets of ions pass close to them. The resulting signal is called a free induction decay (FID), transient or interferogram that consists of a superposition of sine waves. The useful signal is extracted from this data by performing a Fourier transform to give a mass spectrum.

Isotope-ratio mass spectrometry specialization of mass spectrometry

Isotope-ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) is a specialization of mass spectrometry, in which mass spectrometric methods are used to measure the relative abundance of isotopes in a given sample.

ISOLTRAP is a tandem Penning trap mass spectrometer at the On-Line Isotope Mass Separator at CERN. The facility plays a leading role in the field of high precision mass spectrometry of radioactive ions. The masses of more than 200 short-lived nuclides have been measured with a relative uncertainty of typically dm/m ~ 1x10−7 and even almost up to one order of magnitude lower in some special cases.

Heinz-Jürgen Kluge, known as Jürgen Kluge, is a physicist probably best known for the development of ion-storage devices and methods for accurate measurements of nuclear masses.

A radio-frequency quadrupole (RFQ) beam cooler is a device for particle beam cooling, especially suited for ion beams. It lowers the temperature of a particle beam by reducing its energy dispersion and emittance, effectively increasing its brightness (brilliance). The prevalent mechanism for cooling in this case is buffer-gas cooling, whereby the beam loses energy from collisions with a light, neutral and inert gas. The cooling must take place within a confining field in order to counteract the thermal diffusion that results from the ion-atom collisions.

Tandem Accelerator Superconducting Cyclotron (TASCC) was an accelerator facility constructed at Chalk River Laboratories on October 3, 1986. TASCC was the world's first Tandem Accelerator and able to accelerate most elements to 10 MeV per nucleon. The TASCC facility was decommissioned beginning in 1996.

Particle accelerator device to propel charged particles to high speeds

A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to very high speeds and energies, and to contain them in well-defined beams.

The helical orbit spectrometer (HELIOS) is a measurement device for studying nuclear reactions in inverse kinematics. It is installed at the ATLAS facility at Argonne National Laboratory.

The André E. Lalonde Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory is a accelerator mass spectrometry research facility at the University of Ottawa in Canada. It is currently the only facility of its type in Canada. It is named after former University of Ottawa Faculty of Science dean André E. Lalonde, who died of cancer in 2012.

RAON

RAON is a South Korean particle physics laboratory within the Rare Isotope Science Project (RISP) that is being constructed in the outskirts of Daejeon neighboring Sejong, South Korea by the Institute for Basic Science (IBS). It is expected to be finished by 2021.

Atom Trap Trace Analysis (ATTA) is an extremely sensitive trace analysis method developed by Argonne National Lab (ANL). ATTA is used on long-lived, stable radioisotopes such as 81Kr, 85Kr, and 39Ar. By using a laser that is locked to an atomic transition, a CCD or PMT will detect the laser induced fluorescence to allow highly selective, parts-per-trillion to parts-per-quadrillion concentration measurement with single atom detection. This method is useful for atomic transport processes, such as in the atmosphere, geological dating, as well as noble gas purification.

References

  1. ↑ sciencedirect
  2. ↑ Clark, Jason A.; R. C. Barber; B. Blank; C. Boudreau; F. Buchinger; J. E. Crawford; J. P. Greene; S. Gulick; J. C. Hardy; A. A. Hecht; A. Heinz; J. K. P. Lee; A. F. Levand; B. F. Lundgren; R. B. Moore; G. Savard; N. D. Scielzo; D. Seweryniak; K. S. Sharma; G. D. Sprouse; W. Trimble; J. Vaz; J. C. Wang; Y. Wang; B. J. Zabransky; Z. Zhou (2005-08-15). "Investigating the rp-process with the Canadian Penning trap mass spectrometer". European Physical Journal A . Springer International. 25 (1): 629–632. Bibcode:2005EPJAS..25..629C. doi:10.1140/epjad/i2005-06-172-3. ISSN   0939-7922.
  3. ↑ Savard, Guy; R. C. Barber; C. Boudreau; F. Buchinger; J. Caggiano; J. Clark; J. E. Crawford; H. Fukutani; S. Gulick; J. C. Hardy; A. Heinz; J. K. P. Lee; R. B. Moore; K. S. Sharma; J. Schwartz; D. Seweryniak; G. D. Sprouse; J. Vaz (2004-12-04). "The Canadian Penning Trap Spectrometer at Argonne". Hyperfine Interactions . Springer Netherlands. 132 (1–4): 221–228. Bibcode:2001HyInt.132..221S. doi:10.1023/A:1011986930931. ISSN   0304-3843.


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