Laser Spectroscopy along the Series of Actinide Elements – A Rewarding Challenge

Institute of Physics, Johannes Gutenberg University, 55099 Mainz, Germany

Within the Periodic Table of the elements both, the series of the 15 lanthanoide elements with proton numbers 57 ≤ Z ≤ 71 and, even much stronger pronounced, the iso-electronic sequence of the 15 actinoides with 89 ≤ Z ≤ 103 exhibits rather peculiar features in their specific properties. Regarding the atomic structure these species stand out due to the enormous complexity of their level structure and the resulting richness of their optical spectra, based upon 3 up to 4 open valence shells. Even quantum chaos is observed due to strong quantum mechanical configuration interaction of near-by-levels, severely distorting the attractive Coulomb field of the nucleus. Correspondingly, in the all-radioactive actinoides also the derivation of nuclear structure from high resolution laser spectroscopy is still very scarce and first meaningful measurements are just carried out in this region of the nuclear chart. An overview on the contributions of laser resonance ionization spectroscopy to the field of actinoide analysis will be given, trying to span the full range of applications in ultra-trace analysis, in atomic spectroscopy as well as high-lighting some high-resolution approaches for deduction of nuclear parameters.

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