Licentiate thesis: The Proton Mass Determined from a Precision Measurement of the H2+ Mass in a Penning Trap

by Andreas Solders (Stockholm Univeristy, Department of Physics)

Wednesday 5 Nov 2008, 13:15 → 15:00 Europe/Stockholm

FA31

This thesis describes the principle of Penning-Trap Mass-Spectrometers and, in more detail, the SMILETRAP mass spectrometer. Extra attention is paid to the different systematic effects that alter the measured cyclotron frequency and how these can be corrected for. Described is also an improved data analysis scheme which allows for an ion-ion interaction correction. This was a necessary development to reach the desired precision in the proton mass measurement, reporting a proton mass of 1.007 276 466 95(18) u. This measurement is the basis of this thesis. Also important for the proton mass measurement was the implementation of the Ramsey excitation technique to SMILETRAP. The basic idea of this technique and how it is used at SMILETRAP is described in this thesis. Finally the building of a new trapping system, SMILETRAP II, is reported and the improvements compared to the old system are discussed.