Joachim Welte (Markus K. Oberthaler - Group)
Implementation of Atom Trap Trace Analysis for 39Ar - a step towards the holy grail of water dating
Joachim Welte, Matthias Henrich, Florian Ritterbusch, Isabelle Steinke, and Markus K. Oberthaler,
Kirchhoff Inst. f. Physics, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg/ Germany
Thomas Reichel and Werner Aeschbach-Hertig
Inst. of Environmental Physics, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg/ Germany
Dating water samples with 39Ar (T1/2 = 269a) is currently restricted by the limits of "traditional" Low Level Counting, namely the large samples necessary and the long measurement time. We try to overcome these limitations by Atom Trap Trace Analysis for this isotope and thus bridging the "dating gap" of 100 - 1000 years of water sample age. An ATTA table-top apparatus would find applications in many different fields due to its small size and comparatively "low" cost.
We report on several first steps that have been already and currently are undertaken, e.g. from the environmental physics side of the project water degassing and gas separation and from the atom-optical side measurement of hyperfine structure of 39Ar, single atom detection by fluorescence and design of an atomic beam apparatus including a high intensity metastable beam source and subsequent beam collimation.
