Endogenous timing factors in bird migration

Several species of warbler birds were observed in an effort to determine what initiates and terminates migration. Environmental and endogenous timing mechanisms were analyzed. The results indicate that endogenous stimuli are dominant factors for bird migration especially for long distances. It was concluded that environmental factors act as an assist mechanism

Isotope shifts in francium isotopes Fr206-213 and Fr-221

We present the isotope shifts of the 7s(1/2) to 7p(1/2) transition for francium isotopes Fr206-213 with reference to Fr-221 collected from two experimental periods. The shifts are measured on a sample of atoms prepared within a magneto-optical trap by a fast sweep of radio-frequency sidebands applied to a carrier laser. King plot analysis, which includes literature values for 7s(1/2) to 7p(3/2) isotope shifts, provides a field shift constant ratio of 1.0520(10) and a difference between the specific mass shift constants of 170(100) GHz amu between the D-1 and D-2 transitions, of sufficient precision to differentiate between ab initio calculations

The FrPNC Experiment, weak interaction studies in Francium at TRIUMF

Francium is an excellent system to study the nuclear weak force due to its large nucleus and relatively simple atomic structure. The FrPNC experiment has a facility to produce cold trapped atomic francium samples for parity non-conservation studies. We are preparing to measure both the nuclear spin independent and dependent parts of the weak interaction in francium. The first one gives information about weak neutral currents at low energies, while the second one is sensitive to weak interactions between nucleons. We present the current status of the experiment