In-Trap Spectroscopy of Charge-Bred Radioactive Ions

In this Letter, we introduce the concept of in-trap nuclear decay spectroscopy of highly charged radioactive ions and describe its successful application as a novel spectroscopic tool. This is demonstrated by a measurement of the decay properties of radioactive mass A=124 ions (here, ^{124}In and ^{124}Cs) in the electron-beam ion trap of the TITAN facility at TRIUMF. By subjecting the trapped ions to an intense electron beam, the ions are charge bred to high charge states (i.e., equivalent to the removal of N-shell electrons), and an increase of storage times to the level of minutes without significant ion losses is achieved. The present technique opens the venue for precision spectroscopy of low branching ratios and is being developed in the context of measuring electron-capture branching ratios needed for determining the nuclear ground-state properties of the intermediate odd-odd nuclei in double-beta (ββ) decay.