The plunger method for lifetime measurements and its applications
Casper Lakenbrink
University of Cologne, Germany
and Argonne National Laboratory
The plunger or recoil-distance Doppler shift (RDDS) method is a method to measure lifetimes of excited nuclear states that are of the order of picoseconds. From these lifetimes, reduced transition strengths can be calculated, which are a crucial quantity to test predictions made by nuclear models. I will give an overview of the plunger method and of different plunger devices that are used in combination with specific detector setups. An introduction to the techniques that are used to operate the plunger during a measurement as well as techniques for the analysis of plunger experiments will also be given. Finally, I will give some examples of plunger experiments and present the motivation behind them.
Hosted by Prof. Aprahamian and Dr. Tan