Abstract:
Spectroscopy of nuclear resonances offers a wide range of applications due to the remarkable energy resolution afforded by their narrow linewidths. However, progress toward higher resolution is inhibited at modern x-ray sources because they deliver only a tiny fraction of the photons on resonance, with the remainder contributing to an off-resonant background. We devised an experimental setup that uses the fast mechanical motion of a resonant target to manipulate the spectrum of a given x-ray pulse and to redistribute off-resonant spectral intensity onto the resonance. As a consequence, the resonant pulse brilliance is increased while the off-resonant background is reduced. Because our method is compatible with existing and upcoming pulsed x-ray sources, we anticipate that this approach will find applications that require ultranarrow x-ray resonances.
K. P. Heeg, A. Kaldun, C. Strohm, P. Reiser, C. Ott, R. Subramanian, D. Lentrodt, J. Haber, H. C. Wille, S. Görttler, R. Ruffer, C. H. Keitel, R. Rohlsberger, T. Pfeifer, J. Evers: Spectral narrowing of x-ray pulses for precision spectroscopy with nuclear resonances, Science 357 (2017) 375
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aan3512
Related to Project B02