CERN Accelerating science

Article
Report number	arXiv:2002.11418
Title	The electron affinity of astatine
Author(s)	Leimbach, David (CERN ; U. Gothenburg (main) ; Mainz U., Inst. Phys.) ; Karls, Julia (U. Gothenburg (main)) ; Guo, Yangyang (U. Groningen, VSI) ; Ahmed, Rizwan (NCP, Islamabad) ; Ballof, Jochen (CERN ; Mainz U., Inst. Kernchem.) ; Bengtsson, Lars (U. Gothenburg (main)) ; Pamies, Ferran Boix (CERN) ; Borschevsky, Anastasia (U. Groningen, VSI) ; Chrysalidis, Katerina (CERN ; Mainz U., Inst. Phys.) ; Eliav, Ephraim (Tel Aviv U. (main)) ; Fedorov, Dmitry (St. Petersburg, INP) ; Fedosseev, Valentin (CERN) ; Forstner, Oliver (U. Jena (main) ; Helmholtz Inst., Jena) ; Galland, Nicolas (CEISAM, Nantes) ; Ruiz, Ronald Fernando Garcia (CERN ; MIT) ; Granados, Camilo (CERN) ; Heinke, Reinhard (Mainz U., Inst. Phys.) ; Johnston, Karl (CERN) ; Koszorus, Agota (Leuven U.) ; Köster, Ulli (Laue-Langevin Inst.) ; Kristiansson, Moa K. (Stockholm U.) ; Liu, Yuan (Oak Ridge) ; Marsh, Bruce (CERN) ; Molkanov, Pavel (St. Petersburg, INP) ; Pašteka, Lukáš F. (Comenius U.) ; Ramos, João Pedro (SCK-CEN, Mol) ; Renault, Eric (CEISAM, Nantes) ; Reponen, Mikael (Jyvaskyla U.) ; Ringvall-Moberg, Annie (CERN ; U. Gothenburg (main)) ; Rossel, Ralf Erik (CERN) ; Studer, Dominik (Mainz U., Inst. Phys.) ; Vernon, Adam (Manchester U.) ; Warbinek, Jessica (U. Gothenburg (main) ; Mainz U., Inst. Phys.) ; Welander, Jakob (U. Gothenburg (main)) ; Wendt, Klaus (mainz, ins) ; Wilkins, Shane (CERN) ; Hanstorp, Dag (U. Gothenburg (main)) ; Rothe, Sebastian (CERN) ; Rothe, Sebastian (CERN)
Publication	2020
Imprint	2020-02-26
Number of pages	9
Note	The code used to analyze the datasets of the current study are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3924371. The code used to analyze the datasets of the current study are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3924371.
In:	Nature Commun. 11 (2020) 3824
DOI	10.1038/s41467-020-17599-2
Subject category	physics.atom-ph ; Other Fields of Physics
Accelerator/Facility, Experiment	CERN ISOLDE
Abstract	One of the most important properties influencing the chemical behavior of an element is the electron affinity (EA). Among the remaining elements with unknown EA is astatine, where one of its isotopes, $^{211}$At, is remarkably well suited for targeted radionuclide therapy of cancer. With the At− anion being involved in many aspects of current astatine labeling protocols, the knowledge of the electron affinity of this element is of prime importance. Here we report the measured value of the EA of astatine to be 2.41578(7) eV. This result is compared to state-of-the-art relativistic quantum mechanical calculations that incorporate both the Breit and the quantum electrodynamics (QED) corrections and the electron–electron correlation effects on the highest level that can be currently achieved for many-electron systems. The developed technique of laser-photodetachment spectroscopy of radioisotopes opens the path for future EA measurements of other radioelements such as polonium, and eventually super-heavy elements.
Copyright/License	publication: © The Author(s) 2020 (License: CC-BY-4.0) preprint: (License: arXiv nonexclusive-distrib. 1.0)

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