Walter Kutschera, Exploring the World with Accelerator Mass Spectrometry

Tuesday 13 Oct 2015, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Bucharest

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) has dramatically improved the detection sensitivity of long-lived radionuclides by counting atoms rather than decays. For example, one million 14C atoms can be detected with AMS in one hour from a one-milligram carbon sample, whereas in the same time only one 14C atom (half-life = 5700 yr) decays. However, the ultra-low isotopic ratio of 14C/12C = 10-12 can only be measured with the use of a (tandem) accelerator. Besides 14C, which is by far the most-used radionuclide with AMS, more than 50 other long-lived cosmogenic and anthropogenic radionuclides have been measured with AMS allowing one to explore the seven domains of our environment at large: atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere, cosmosphere, technosphere [1]. The current presentation will demonstrate the versatility of the field by discussing examples from archaeology, oceanography, geophysics, biology, and astrophysics.