Observation of the distribution of nuclear magnetization in a molecule
Abstract
Rapid progress in the experimental control and interrogation of molecules, combined with developments in precise calculations of their structure, are enabling new opportunities in the investigation of nuclear and particle physics phenomena. Molecules containing heavy, octupole-deformed nuclei such as radium are of particular interest for such studies, offering an enhanced sensitivity to the properties of fundamental particles and interactions. Here, we report precision laser spectroscopy measurements and theoretical calculations of the structure of the radioactive radium monofluoride molecule, RaF. Our results allow fine details of the short-range electron-nucleus interaction to be revealed, indicating the high sensitivity of this molecule to the distribution of magnetization, currently a poorly constrained nuclear property, within the radium nucleus. These results provide a direct and stringent test of the description of the electronic wavefunction inside the nuclear volume, highlighting the suitability of these molecules to investigate subatomic phenomena.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2311.04121,
title = {Observation of the distribution of nuclear magnetization in a molecule},
author = {S. G. Wilkins and S. M. Udrescu and M. Athanasakis-Kaklamanakis and R. F. Garcia Ruiz and M. Au and I. Belošević and R. Berger and M. L. Bissell and A. A. Breier and A. J. Brinson and K. Chrysalidis and T. E. Cocolios and R. P. de Groote and A. Dorne and K. T. Flanagan and S. Franchoo and K. Gaul and S. Geldhof and T. F. Giesen and D. Hanstorp and R. Heinke and T. Isaev and Á. Koszorús and S. Kujanpää and L. Lalanne and G. Neyens and M. Nichols and H. A. Perrett and J. R. Reilly and L. V. Skripnikov and S. Rothe and B. van den Borne and Q. Wang and J. Wessolek and X. F. Yang and C. Zülch},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2311.04121},
year = {2025}
}