Atomic physics with new synchrotron radiation: Report from the Japanese working group

The construction of a new photon facility, SPring-8, is being started this year in Harima, Japan, and the first photon beam is to be supplied to users in 1998. As a next generation photon source, this facility will rely mainly upon insertion devices like the APS. The source has two characteristic features. One is that the photon flux is very powerful. In atomic physics target density is often very dilute, and, in many cases, coincidence measurement is desirable to get more definite conclusions. Only with the advent of an intense photon source such studies become tractable and will compensate a thin target density. Another feature is that it can yield photons as high as one hundred or two hundred keV. Since the K-edge of uranium is about 120 keV, the new source can be used to ionize even the innermost shell of the heaviest element. In order to discuss the possible projects in the field of atomic physics with these new photon sources, a group was organized in December 1988. The following themes have been discussed (multiply charged ion is abbreviated to MCI): (1) spectroscopy of atoms and molecules; (2) photoionization of ions (inclusive of MCI); (3) MCI-trap (spectroscopy of MCI, cold MCI plasma); (4) collisions of very slow MCI; (5) electronic and atomic structures of microclusters; and (6) plasma