Isotope shifts and hyperfine structure of 212-214Ra+

The availability of short lived Ra isotopes at the TRIμP facility of the KVI makes the study of atomic structure of these isotopes possible. 212-214Ra ions are trapped in a buffer-gas filled Paul trap. Isotope shifts and hyperfine structures of 212-214Ra+ for several transitions were obtained by laser spectroscopy. Ra+ is of particular interest for a most precise measurement of Atomic Parity Violation (APV), currently underway in our group. Such a measurement will provide a stringent test of the Standard Model of particle physics. However, the interpretation of APV measurements require the determination of the weak matrix elements to better than 1% accuracy in order to extract the weak charge (Weinberg angle). Currently, our calculations are accurate to some 3%. We therefore plan to exploit the fact that radium has a wide range of isotopes by looking at the ratio E1APV/ E1'APV for two -or more- isotopes, and thus canceling atomic uncertainties. Here, nuclear structure effects start to play a role. The extracted isotope shifts and hyperfine interactions provide indispensable information. In addition, the measured hyperfine structure of 213Ra+ is of particular interest for the proposed Radium single ion clock.