Accurate Charge Radius Measurement of C 14 Confronts Ab Initio Theory

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Abstract
Located at the neutron shell closure N = 8 , the long-lived radioactive isotope C 14 plays a critical role in geochronology and nuclear structure studies. Despite its widespread use, the nuclear charge radius of C 14 has remained less precisely known than that of its stable counterpart C 12 . Here, we report a high-precision determination of the C 14 charge radius using collinear laser spectroscopy at the COALA setup at TU Darmstadt, improving upon the precision of previous muonic measurements by a factor of 5 and revealing a 1.9 σ discrepancy of combined uncertainty, indicating a likely underestimated uncertainty in the muonic determination. This measurement challenges state-of-the-art nuclear theory calculations, including auxiliary field diffusion Monte Carlo, the valence-space in-medium similarity renormalization group, and the no-core shell model, augmented by neural-network techniques. With C 12 and C 14 now forming one of the most precisely characterized even-even isotope pairs, these results also enable improved QED tests.
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Funding Information
  • Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (279384907–SFB 1245)
  • European Research Council
  • European Commission
  • Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (101020842)
  • U.S. Department of Energy (DE-AC05-00OR22725)
  • Office of Science (DE-SC0023495)
  • Laboratory Directed Research and Development
  • Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  • Nuclear Physics (DE-AC02-06CH11357)
  • Advanced Scientific Computing Research
  • Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (PID2023-147458NB-C21)
  • Agencia Estatal de Investigación
  • Los Alamos National Laboratory
  • National Nuclear Security Administration (89233218CNA000001)
  • Japan Science and Technology Agency
  • Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (JPMJER2304)
  • Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (25K07294)
  • Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (25K00995)
  • Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (25K07330)
  • Bundesministerium für Forschung, Technologie und Raumfahrt (05P19RDFN1)
  • Bundesministerium für Forschung, Technologie und Raumfahrt (05P21RDFN1)
  • Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst
  • Argonne Leadership Computing Facility
  • Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) NUCLEI Program

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