Spatial confinement of muonium atoms

We report the achievement of spatial confinement of muonium atoms (the bound state of a positive muon and an electron). Muonium emitted into vacuum from mesoporous silica reflects between two SiO$_2$ confining surfaces separated by 1 mm. From the data, one can extract that the reflection probability on the confining surfaces kept at 100 K is about 90% and the reflection process is well described by a cosine law. This technique enables new experiments with this exotic atomic system and is a very important step towards a measurement of the 1S-2S transition frequency using continuous wave laser spectroscopy.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

Thin-disk laser pump schemes for large number of passes and moderate pump source quality

Novel thin-disk laser pump layouts are proposed yielding an increased number of passes for a given pump module size and pump source quality. These novel layouts result from a general scheme which bases on merging two simpler pump optics arrangements. Some peculiar examples can be realized by adapting standard commercially available pump optics simply by intro ducing an additional mirror-pair. More pump passes yield better efficiency, opening the way for usage of active materials with low absorption. In a standard multi-pass pump design, scaling of the number of beam passes brings ab out an increase of the overall size of the optical arrangement or an increase of the pump source quality requirements. Such increases are minimized in our scheme, making them eligible for industrial applicationsComment: 16 pages, 9 figure

Compact 20-pass thin-disk amplifier insensitive to thermal lensing

We present a multi-pass amplifier which passively compensates for distortions of the spherical phase front occurring in the active medium. The design is based on the Fourier transform propagation which makes the output beam parameters insensitive to variation of thermal lens effects in the active medium. The realized system allows for 20 reflections on the active medium and delivers a small signal gain of 30 with M$^2$ = 1.16. Its novel geometry combining Fourier transform propagations with 4f-imaging stages as well as a compact array of adjustable mirrors allows for a layout with a footprint of 400 mm x 1000 mm.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Operational properties of fine powder aerosol as radiation detection medium in gaseous proportional counters

Due to its exceptional properties, 3He proportional counters are the golden standard for neutron detection, particularly in homeland security applications where large area detectors are deployed. However, in recent years 3He has become severely scarce, which led to a tremendous price increase and acquisition restrictions of this material. Motivated by this, the development of 3He-free solutions became a priority. In a previous work, we have established a novel concept for neutron detection: a proportional counter with boron carbide (B4C) fine powder suspended in the proportional gas, forming a neutron sensitive aerosol that relies on the 10B neutron capture reaction. Computer simulations and prototype exposure to a cold neutron beam yielded favorable results, validating the detection concept, which may also be applied to hard x-ray and gamma ray detection by using fine particles made of a heavy element, such as Bi or Au. In this work we study the effect of the presence of B4C microparticles in the charge gain and energy resolution of a proportional counter filled with Ar-CH4 (90%–10%), by irradiation with x-rays from a 55Fe source. For the same applied voltage, an average gain loss by a factor of 36% and energy resolution (FWHM) increase by 15% (absolute value) was observed with the inclusion of B4C microparticles. Intrinsic energy resolution was calculated, obtaining 15% for pure P10 operation and 32% in the presence of the microparticles. While the gain drop is recoverable by increasing anode voltage, energy resolution degradation may be a drawback in low energy applications, were energy resolution is favored over detection efficiency.publishe

muCool: A novel low-energy muon beam for future precision experiments

Experiments with muons ($\mu^{+}$) and muonium atoms ($\mu^{+}e^{-}$) offer several promising possibilities for testing fundamental symmetries. Examples of such experiments include search for muon electric dipole moment, measurement of muon $g-2$ and experiments with muonium from laser spectroscopy to gravity experiments. These experiments require high quality muon beams with small transverse size and high intensity at low energy. At the Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland, we are developing a novel device that reduces the phase space of a standard $\mu^{+}$ beam by a factor of $10^{10}$ with $10^{-3}$ efficiency. The phase space compression is achieved by stopping a standard $\mu^{+}$ beam in a cryogenic helium gas. The stopped $\mu^{+}$ are manipulated into a small spot with complex electric and magnetic fields in combination with gas density gradients. From here, the muons are extracted into the vacuum and into a field-free region. Various aspects of this compression scheme have been demonstrated. In this article the current status will be reported.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, TCP 2018 conference proceeding

Proton structure corrections to electronic and muonic hydrogen hyperfine splitting

We present a precise determination of the polarizability and other proton structure dependent contributions to the hydrogen hyperfine splitting, based heavily on the most recent published data on proton spin dependent structure functions from the EG1 experiment at the Jefferson Laboratory. As a result, the total calculated hyperfine splitting now has a standard deviation slightly under 1 part-per-million, and is about 1 standard deviation away from the measured value. We also present results for muonic hydrogen hyperfine splitting, taking care to ensure the compatibility of the recoil and polarizability terms.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur

Muonic hydrogen cascade time and lifetime of the short-lived 2S2S state

Metastable ${2S}$ muonic-hydrogen atoms undergo collisional ${2S}$-quenching, with rates which depend strongly on whether the $\mu p$ kinetic energy is above or below the ${2S}\to {2P}$ energy threshold. Above threshold, collisional ${2S} \to {2P}$ excitation followed by fast radiative ${2P} \to {1S}$ deexcitation is allowed. The corresponding short-lived $\mu p ({2S})$ component was measured at 0.6 hPa $\mathrm{H}_2$ room temperature gas pressure, with lifetime $\tau_{2S}^\mathrm{short} = 165 ^{+38}_{-29}$ ns (i.e., $\lambda_{2S}^\mathrm{quench} = 7.9 ^{+1.8}_{-1.6} \times 10^{12} \mathrm{s}^{-1}$ at liquid-hydrogen density) and population $\epsilon_{2S}^\mathrm{short} = 1.70^{+0.80}_{-0.56}$ % (per $\mu p$ atom). In addition, a value of the $\mu p$ cascade time, $T_\mathrm{cas}^{\mu p} = (37\pm5)$ ns, was found.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure