Coherence-Enhanced Optical Determination of the 229Th Isomeric Transition

The impact of coherent light propagation on the excitation and fluorescence of thorium nuclei in a crystal lattice environment is investigated theoretically. We find that in the forward direction, the fluorescence signal exhibits characteristic intensity modulations dominated by a sped-up initial decay signal that is orders of magnitude faster. This feature can be exploited for the optical determination of the isomeric transition energy. In order to obtain a unmistakable signature of the isomeric nuclear fluorescence, we put forward a novel scheme for the direct measurement of the transition energy via electromagnetically modified nuclear forward scattering involving two fields that couple to three nuclear states. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.262502