Theory of internal conversion of the thorium-229 nuclear isomer in solid-state hosts
Abstract
Laser excitation of thorium-229 nuclei in doped wide bandgap crystals has been demonstrated recently, opening the possibility of developing ultrastable solid-state clocks and sensitive searches for new physics. We develop a quantitative theory of the internal conversion of isomeric thorium-229 in solid-state hosts. The internal conversion of the isomer proceeds by resonantly exciting a valence band electron to a defect state, accompanied by multi-phonon emission. We demonstrate that, if the process is energetically allowed, it generally quenches the isomer on timescales much faster than the isomer's radiative lifetime, despite thorium being in the +4 charge state in the valence band.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2411.15641,
title = {Theory of internal conversion of the thorium-229 nuclear isomer in solid-state hosts},
author = {H. W. T. Morgan and H. B. Tran Tan and R. Elwell and A. N. Alexandrova and Eric R. Hudson and Andrei Derevianko},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.15641},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
Discussions of NEET process and particle-hole interaction added