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Testing strong-field QED to second-order in the highly correlated atomic system berylliumlike Pb78+ by electron-ion recombination spectroscopy

Atomic Physics 2025-09-11 v2

Abstract

A low-energy storage ring with an ultracold electron cooler has been coupled with a heavy-ion accelerator facilitating high-resolution electron-ion collision spectroscopy of the heaviest few-electron ions. In the present work resonant electron-ion recombination of berylliumlike Pb78+^{78+} ions was measured in the collision-energy range 9.3-16.5eV and a value of 244.937(30) eV is derived for the Pb78+^{78+}(2s2  1S02s2p  3P12s^2\;^1S_0 - 2s\,2p\;^3P_1) excitation energy. This result agrees with the most recent (less accurate) theoretical value of 244.942(52) eV [Malyshev et al., Physical Review A 110, 062824 (2024)], which has been calculated by applying strong-field QED rigorously up to the second order. The present investigation suggests that further technical improvements can potentially increase the experimental accuracy by an order of magnitude.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2502.15433,
  title  = {Testing strong-field QED to second-order in the highly correlated atomic system berylliumlike Pb78+ by electron-ion recombination spectroscopy},
  author = {S. Schippers and C. Brandau and S. Fuchs and M. Lestinsky and S. X. Wang and C. Y. Zhang and N. R. Badnell and A. Borovik and M. Fogle and V. Hannen and Z. Harman and P. -M. Hillenbrand and E. B. Menz and Y. Zhang and Z. Andelkovic and F. Herfurth and R. Heß and A. Kalinin and C. Kozhuharov and C. Krantz and S. Litvinov and B. Lorentz and U. Spillmann and M. Steck and G. Vorobyev and D. Banaś and S. Fritzsche and E. Lindroth and X. Ma and A. Müller and R. Schuch and A. Surzhykov and M. Trassinelli and K. Ueberholz and C. Weinheimer and Th. Stöhlker},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.15433},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

8 pages, 3 figures